A Peccatis
by Thanfiction
Summary: How much can we allow the sins of the past to shape the future? The third and final novel of the DAYD trilogy, sequel to "Dumbledore's Army and the Year of Darkness" and "Sluagh." Spoilers for the entire DAYDverse.
1. Prologue

4 April, 1998, 23:51

OOO

"Shouldn't we…I mean, when we've done this before, it's always been the black and the scarves and –" Michael shook his head, cutting Anthony off mid-sentence as he reached into his bookbag, burying his arm to the shoulder and stretching the sides carefully to check the Expansion Charm.

"That's the Commander's style, and that sort of Gryffindor flair has its place, sure, but this isn't it. Our biggest Shield Charm here is that we're almost expected to sneak into the library after curfew now and then, so if we get nabbed, it's better if they know _exactly _who we are." His voice sounded almost confident, but as he caught Terry's eye behind the other wizard's shoulder, he knew that at least one person knew exactly how frightened he really was.

It was true, of course, the sapphire fabric of their pajamas and the bronze eagles on the pockets really were their strongest alibis, but it would be at best a preservation of the mission, and they all knew that. After Milton's attack on Snape and all that had followed it, whatever reputation Ravenclaw had once enjoyed as scholars too academically detached for any real rebellion had long been lost. They would be punished terribly if they were caught, there was no question about that, but neither was there any real question that it would be worth it.

He saw Terry take a deep breath, running his hand nervously over his short-cropped hair as if he missed the ability to fidget with it. "Everyone memorized the list?"

There were nods all around, Stephen mumbling a few of the titles under his breath, and Terry made a curt, satisfied noise. "We head out then. Let's go."

The sculpted eagle knocker fluttered its wings with a thin, metallic clatter that seemed as loud as fanfare announcing their tentative escape from the tower, and there was a terrified pause where all four held their breath, hearts and minds pounding over possibilities that they had somehow missed an alarm spell. Yet there was no further noise, the seventh-floor corridor was pitch black and utterly empty, even the pictures in their frames slumbering and nearly as motionless as Muggle photographs.

They were thoroughly concealed beneath Disillusionment Charms, he could see no more of his roommates than the vaguest suggestion of a sense of movement, but he could still feel Terry's presence barely inches away, and it was almost comfort enough to keep his hands from shaking. _Maybe we should tell Neville after all…or somebody. Colin, even. He's already Secret-Keeper._

_No. _Terry's silent rebuttal was firm. _This is beyond the DA. It's got to hold even if we don't. We're taking history in our hands here._

_Literally. _Michael agreed. _I'm just…. _He trailed off, but he didn't need to finish. Terry knew better than anyone that he still wasn't fully recovered, that he was still a little sore, a little weak, but he'd been taking it easy the whole day to be at his best for this, and he was grateful that they hadn't tried to exclude him from what had become known as Operation Alexandria.

What felt like years of dry-mouthed skulking through corridors and careful navigation of shifting staircases later, they found themselves at the doors of the library, and Michael raised his wand, feeling it hum faintly in his palm in response to the magic already there. "We need the Portal," he whispered. "The current regime doesn't seem to support after-hours study groups."

Stephen didn't hesitate, kneeling at once to smooth the thin circle against the wall, and the stone seemed to melt away at once, stretching and shimmering to open a neat, round opening through which the stacks of the library could be seen clearly. Anthony went first, already crouched to duck through, wand at the ready, and there was another hesitation, another few ghastly-loud heartbeats before the faint, golden flash. One long, two short. All clear.

Terry nearly lost his fingers pulling the Portal away from the inside once they were all through, but after that moment of shared panic, Michael discovered that he felt far more relaxed now. This was his true habitat, his chosen milieu even more than the dormitory or his own bedroom at home, where the smell of old leather and musty paper was as warm and comforting as a mother's embrace. His pulse slowed, a faint smile forming as he ran his hand gently over the tooled spines. _Bene legere saecla vincere._

Breaking into the Restricted Section was a skill Stephen had mastered in fifth year, and many of the books were familiar to all of them, but their final destination was nothing so pedestrian as a volume of spells with potentially unpleasant consequences, and Michael's throat tightened, the weight of history palpable in the air so suddenly too thick to breath. The collected works of D'Aurillac, Perecelses, and Flamel. The _Artes Magicae_, the _Golden Legend,_ the _Dialogus Miraculorum,_ letters and notes from the genesis of spells that had felled kings and shaped empires…every faded and fragile volume priceless beyond reckoning; the most precious collection of magical literature assembled in the entirety of the western world.

And they were going to steal it.

He held his breath as Terry's hand stretched out, refusing to give in to the temptation to reach out with the Legilimency, knowing his friend's concentration had to be flawless. According to their research, these shelves were self-protective, and they could only hope that if legend could be trusted that Rowena Ravenclaw had cast the spells herself, they would know the intent of her own, no matter how many centuries intervened.

There was a faint shimmer of blue, and Terry gave a jerk, almost as if burned, but before Michael could react, his hand passed through the light to touch the edge of Merlin's own _Opus Malificarum, _and the thrill of relief was almost a sob. It understood. Oh, it _understood!_

One by one, sweat beaded on his forehead, his lips pale as ash in the light of their wands, Terry lifted the ancient tomes from the stacks, Anthony performing a Gemino that sounded like prayer to create a perfect copy of each one. Those were returned to their precise places by Stephen, while Michael himself took the nerve-wracking task of settling the books carefully into his magically expansive and painstakingly cushioned bag. The atmosphere within had been transfigured to pure nitrogen, humidity and temperature precisely controlled, but it still seemed horribly reckless, and he was balanced on an edge of reverence and horror so tight that it melded to giddy impossibility.

When the last forgery was in place, their two roommates vanished into the shadows to prepare the chamber where the originals would be hidden, and Michael and Terry were left briefly alone to make a final inspection of the stacks, to ensure that nothing had been mis-shelved or overlooked. There would be no second chances. They all knew that.

Terry's eyes were so wide that white showed all the way around the rims of the deep blue irises, and Michael licked his lips with a tongue that felt as dry and rough as sandpaper as he looked at his friend. _Sweet Merlin, Terry, I can't believe I'm holding –_

_We're fucked._

The thought was so calm, so matter-of-fact that it took Michael a second to process what it actually was, but when he did, a surge of sheer, adrenaline-spattered terror swept over him in a wave so thick that he staggered, barely feeling Terry's hand catch his shoulder to keep him from sagging to his knees as the dark outline of the shadow fell over them. He knew that shadow, but more than that, he knew what Terry had seen, had seen the image himself through the eyes that didn't even need to be his.

Still, it was worse when he did manage to gather himself enough to turn, his stomach churning a heave of bitter-sour into the back of his mouth that was barely swallowed back as the name rasped from Terry's lips. "Professor Snape."

The Headmaster's sallow face was a sickly green in the light of his outstretched wand, his thin mouth twisted around a smile as one black eyebrow arched imperiously. "Mr. Boot. Mr. Corner…I have no doubt, given your mutual reputations, that your explanation for why you are here will be extremely clever, but nonetheless, _bis interimitur qui suis armis perit." _

Terry's mouth opened, closed, but all that emerged was a low, rasping breath; half a moan, half a whisper. _Nous sommes tres morts. _

Michael could not have agreed more fervently, but whether it was the greater knowledge of what the strap biting across his chest and shoulder truly held, or whether the fear had simply swallowed itself in a perfect Oraborus of dread, the urge to vomit had vanished. Instead, he felt weirdly separated from his own body, a sensation he could only compare to the deepest moments of Legilimency or the tenuous threshold of a dream as he saw himself draw his back straight and square his shoulders, looking the hated Professor directly in those cold, black eyes.

The voice was that of a stranger; clearer and bolder, stronger and more evenly, authoritatively mature than he had ever heard from his own lips. "I don't care what you do to us, Professor, but I know you're a scholar yourself, that you've invented spells and potions that are part of the standard texts now, no matter what your politics or morals, and I would appeal to you on that; wizard to wizard."

Snape's head tilted almost imperceptibly, and though his narrow features gave no sign of reaction, nor did his wand waver, he also did not simply curse his two captives. "You would appeal to me?"

"These books!" Michael gestured to the shelves behind him, feeling the flush of passion beginning to replace the pallor of fear in his cheeks. "This year is madness, Professor, you know that, and you know that the dogs of war roam the halls of Pallas whether we would pretend them leashed or not! One spell, one duel, one battle is all it would take for a tragedy unparalleled since Alexandria! We're only –"

A bang, a flash, and Michael braced himself, squeezing his eyes shut in preparation for what he knew was coming, and oh, it must be bad this time, something that would be apocalyptic once the numbness of shock wore off, because he could feel nothing, even as he knew he was falling, heard his body strike the floor....

But there was no pain, just hands on his shoulders, and as his eyes blinked open again, he realized dazedly that the hands were Terry's, that he had fallen only to his knees, and that the impact he had heard was Snape, lying now face-down in a crumple of black robes with Stephen and Anthony standing over him. Stephen's dusky complexion had taken on a horrible ashen verdigris, and his wand was shaking violently as he lowered it. "Holy _fucking _shit!"

The harder consonants and clipped rhythm of the Canadian accent underlined the simple, appropriate vulgarity of the phrase, and Michael nodded dumbly, still transfixed by the insensate lump of what he had been so certain was about to be yet another lesson in new realms of agony. "Yeah, Steve." The unnatural assurance was gone, the whisper that of the rattled barely-more-than-boy he really was, but he didn't bother to be ashamed, more than able to see that they were all just as frightened.

It was Terry who composed himself first, stepping forward to lower his own wand at Snape. _"Obliviate!" _His face was still pale, but the Commander had made his choice well, and the leadership was shaky but still there enough as he turned to the others. "Steve and I both got him hard, but that doesn't give us long. The chamber?"

Anthony nodded, though his eyes never left Snape. "Ready. Cut it into one of the oldest walls, past the stone and into the central rubble. There's no breaching that unless you tear the whole tower down."

"And if they do, it'll still hold once we're done with it," Terry said quickly, rubbing his hands together as if to force sensation back into numbed fingertips. "Tony, you stay here, keep an eye on Slumbering Severus there. We can make do with three, I guess."

"No." Anthony shook his head firmly. "I don't want to skew the odds against us like that. At least two of us have to survive to retrieve them, and it's better if that's only fifty percent instead of two-thirds."

Terry hesitated, then agreed reluctantly, and although Michael knew he had been right, it was still a nightmare of constant apprehension as they rushed to finish their mission. Every noise, every breath – even his own – was Snape stirring to come down on them all, and the tension strung the lingering shadows of his torture until Terry lifted the bag from his aching shoulders, helped him to sit as the final layers of complex spellwork were added.

He was exhausted by the time they reached Ravenclaw tower again, but they were all still far too keyed-up to sleep. They didn't dare say anything, feeling as though they had laid to rest a secret so huge as to be desecrated by words even between the conspirators, but he was grateful there was no such barrier with Terry as his friend gently opened his pajama top, smoothing a layer of salve across where the strap had bruised the still newly-healed tissue. _I shouldn't have let you carry them. _

_I'm grateful, even if it was all about practicality._

Terry snorted mildly, pausing as he scooped up another fingerful of the useful but disgusting concoction. _Well, at least it all worked out. That was…._

_Close._

_Understatement. _

_But they're safe now. _

_And hopefully forever. Operation Alexandria was a success, I'd say. _Terry's smile was uncertain, but Michael knew that it had nothing to do with doubts as to their mission itself as he reached up, clasping his hand over his friends' tightly.

_A complete success. But make me a deal? _

_I'll have to withhold agreement for terms, if you don't mind._

_Promise we leave future dumbshit stunts to the Gryffindors?_

The smile widened to a full-fledged grin, and even though the tower dormitory remained dark and silent to anyone who might be interested in the enforcement of curfew, Terry's laughter beamed through Michael's thoughts like the living memory of summer sunshine. _Absolutely! Cuiusvis hominis est errare, nullius nisi insipientis in errore perseverare!_

TO BE CONTINUED


	2. Omnia Mutantur

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This picks up exactly where "Sluagh" left off. To make it easier for everyone to not have to look up and re-read the epilogue of that story to be able to step back into the conversation mid-stream, I have repeated the epilogue at the beginning of this chapter, but there is plenty of new as well, so don't be fooled just because the first part looks familiar.

OOOO

2nd May, 2008

OOO

They had started out as solemn affairs, what most people thought of as 'proper' memorials with wreaths lain, speeches given, and prayers intoned about lives snuffed out too young, but as the years had gone on and those who survived were increasingly old enough to have say in how their friends were remembered, they had taken on a far different feel. By rights, they felt, the annual remembrances should be the victory party their friends never had, an opportunity to give thanks for the lives they had been willing to give for one another, and most of all, they had unanimously decided to make at least _their_ gathering a wholly closed affair, even if some of them were required to put in an appearance at various, more public obligations.

There would be, they had decided, no more journalists nosing around for reminiscences or 'poignant moments' that made every tear a risk, no more gawkers come to see the people they'd read about in this newspaper or that magazine, no more morbidly curious strangers or posturing do-gooders. Just them. Just Dumbledore's Army at the simple granite column that bore the names of the fallen on the edge of the Hogwarts grounds, quietly tucked away near the gate at the patch of deliberately still-shattered wall where the first of the night's dead had fallen.

At first, their gatherings had rung heavily of tight-lipped defiance, but as they had begun to settle more into their own lives, it had relaxed more and more. True, there had been a retreat into fresh grief the year that Summerby, Utterson, Winchcombe, and Zeller were added to the long list they had so naively thought complete, but there had thankfully been no more since, and the memorials had continued indefatigably towards their current form.

To an outsider, it wouldn't have seemed a memorial at all, but rather a party or cookout of some kind, a score of young families scattered across the lawn on bright blankets, hampers of food spread wide as children ran and played in and out through the adults. It was only if you were to look closer that you would see that all of the adults were within four years of the same age, realize how many were horribly scarred, even missing parts of their bodies entirely. It was only if you listened that you would hear how many of the children's names were echoed on the silently carved stone.

The dead were far from forgotten, but it had become an event for the living, and the spring sunshine was warm and bright as Neville turned to exchange a deep smile with the only other man in their already tight-knit circle who truly understood how priceless it was to see so many of them there. "So how does it feel, being out?"

"Lovely, 'tis, one day parole or no, but ah, Fearless Leader, what I really miss is me wand. Nothin' makes ya appreciate _Scourgify _like one o' these." Seamus made a face as he wiped ineffectively at the gooey mess spread across his son's face and shirt, and Neville laughed, drawing his own wand to tap the boy's chubby cheeks with the very spell his friend had bemoaned.

"Just wait until he's a little older," he teased. "This is nothing, but you still should have known better."

"Cake's soft!" Seamus protested, shifting the baby to rest in the crook of one arm as he wagged a finger at him. "Ya shouldn't have had no reason go spittin' it up all o'er, ya shouldn't." The rebuke did not appear to have the desired impact, and Thomas simply replied with an impressive spit bubble before grabbing his father's finger in both hands and jamming it into his mouth, prompting a martyred roll of the blue eyes. "See how well he listens, do ya? Six months old and a bloody terror he is already!"

"Well, he might look like Sue, but he's definitely yours," Neville agreed. "Seriously, though, soft or not, good rule of thumb is that until he's at least got teeth, anything he eats should come from his Mum, one way or another."

One fair eyebrow raised, and Seamus glanced from his friend to where Hannah was attempting to coax Ernie into taking a few steps for Ginny, while Peggy and Trevor appeared to be deeply engrossed in the dissection of their own lunches rather than actually consuming them. "This, then, would be from your vast and encyclopedic knowledge of children, I'm assumin'?"

"Three to one, mate," Neville grinned, then leaned in closer, dropping his voice low to keep his next words between the two of them. Well, technically three, but Thomas was not yet precisely a threat when it came to gossip. "Don't start spreading it around yet, but we're thinking there might be another one in January, too."

"Merlin's tears, can'tcha give the poor girl a break?!" Seamus shook his head in mock scandal, then winced, glaring at his son again as he yanked his finger away. "Mouth like an effin' dragon trap, ya got! I'd like be keepin' all ten o' those, if ya don't mind."

Neville chuckled again, reaching out to take the squirming, dark-haired baby while he dug in the pocket of his robes for a moment before pulling out a pacifier and extending it, along with his wand, to Seamus. "Here. I won't tell if you'll just clean that off for me, and we'll give him something else to gnaw on for a while." There was a pause as the little maneuver was completed, and soon Thomas was working away happily, his eyes already beginning to drift lazily in the first signs of an impending nap.

"Anyway…" Neville had become well accustomed to having to stop and start adult conversations around the demands of small children, and it was no effort at all any more to remember where they had left off. "We're actually stopping after this one, to be honest. We've talked about it, and four's really the number we'd both like. Proper big family, but not like the Smiths or the Weasleys, you know? Hannah doesn't know how Megan copes with five. What about you and Susan? Think you'll have more?"

"Don't really know," he admitted. "Whole thing's still a bit odd, 'tis. We weren't really _plannin' _none o' this, but…" Seamus trailed off, looking around them at the clustered families, and his expression was unreadable, his voice soft when he finally continued. "Ya move on, ya do. Ain't nothin' else _to _do, or life, it goes on without ya."

He looked down, twisting the end of the ponytail he had allowed to grow long again - though Neville had made a point of never asking why - and a faint, mournful smile quirked one corner of his mouth. "Lookin' 'round here, seein' how everyone's grown up, makes me think I proper did meself o'er, it does. I mean, there's girls here what were still workin' on getting' tits when it all happened, and now they're mothers with kids older than mine and careers and…but then the what ifs, they've this way o' turnin' funny on themselves. Like if I had kept me head, what o' the Diabhal Dubh, and would I've ever found Sue if I weren't servin' me time, and would she've ever moved on, and what o' me _Tommy_…."

Seamus shook his head, clearly at a loss for words as he brushed the back of his fingers across the soft little head, but no words were needed. A new baby might bring all the world to circle around the mother for the miracle she had created, but there was something inexpressibly astonishing about fatherhood as well, something you couldn't understand unless you had experienced it, and something he was grateful he could now share with his best friend. To know that you had been half of that miracle, to see yourself however strongly or faintly reflected in another human being that held you in such innocent trust when your hand could surround their entire tiny head, their whole body on the length of your forearm…it was at once terrifying and thrilling, and Neville nodded knowingly.

"It all comes together in the end," he said quietly, handing Thomas gently back. "I mean, I've always believed that, but once you've got kids, you _have _to. There's got to be some kind of higher plan, because we're all making it up as we go along, but you just can't look at them and –"

"-- Say it's anythin' but 'zactly where ya'd want to be if every bit o' it - tears and all - had been told ya from the – _t'hell?!_"

Neville spun, and though it had been years, his reflexes were as sharp as ever as his wand came up along with dozens of others across the grounds, all aimed directly at what had caught not merely Seamus' attention so dramatically. They were birds - two ravens, he could see now - huge and glossy black, plummeting down out of the sky in a near-suicidal Seeker's dive straight for them, and he jerked back as one missed him by inches, the other flapping to a barely-controlled landing at his feet. A scroll of parchment had been tied to one leg, and it lowered its beak to pluck away the cord binding it there, gave a loud caw, and then was gone.

It hadn't taken off again, there had been no flash or crack: its message delivered, the bird had simply stopped _being_, and his hands were shaking slightly as he knelt to retrieve the tightly-foiled scroll.

"You too?" He startled at the voice behind him, and Harry was there as he stood, the lightning scar on his brow creased as he frowned, holding out a scroll that was the twin of Neville's own. "Do you suppose we should be worried?"

"Probably just something to do with the anniversary," Neville said with forced confidence, slipping his wand beneath the wax seal to crack it open. "I mean, _today_ of all days is not a weird time for someone to send something to the two of us, even if the method was a bit…odd."

He unfurled it now, tilting his head curiously as he saw that it wasn't properly a letter, but the top half of what looked like a torn page from a book pasted to the larger parchment. The ink was faded, it looked several years old but not ancient, and his curiosity deepened as he saw the date at the top, written like the rest of it in a thin, spidery, old-fashioned hand that seemed vaguely familiar in a way he couldn't quite place.

_21 March, 1980_

A gasp broke his attempts to decipher the delicate writing, and he looked up just in time to see Harry's knees buckle beneath him, Ron barely managing to catch him before he would have collapsed completely. His face had gone deathly white, and his green eyes were perfect circles of shock as he looked up, holding out his own letter so that Neville could see now that it bore what was unquestionably the bottom half of the same page. "_Dumbledore!"_

"What?!" Ron reached past him, and his own mouth dropped open as he looked at it. "Blimey! That's his, all right! What's he doing sending you and Neville letters from the great beyond?"

"It's not a letter," Neville replied, and now his hands were shaking, he could feel his own face falling pale, and as his eyes skimmed the lines more and more easily as they adjusted to the handwriting, he began to agree that Harry, prematurely or not, had displayed precisely the right reaction. "It's from his diary…it's the day he heard the prophecy, it's…"

He licked his lips, and he couldn't go on, but Hermione was there now, looking over his shoulder, and her hand flew to her mouth with a little gasp that told him she must have reached the same part he had. "Harry, you were _deliberately chosen_!"

"Is that all?!" Seamus exclaimed, glancing between the two men incredulously, Thomas having somehow managed to fall asleep on his shoulder in the middle of the sudden upheaval. "Ya had us thinkin' it were the end o' the effin' world! We all know he were chosen…coincidence it is with why folk call him 'The Chosen One,' maybe?"

"Maybe so," Hermione conceded, "but according to this, unless Harry's half contains a pretty radical change of mind, it was never _Riddle_ who chose."

Harry's voice was shaking, a bright flush appearing across the tops of his cheekbones on his otherwise pale face as the parchment was crushed into a tight wad in his fist. "He lied to me! That _bastard!_"

Although she seemed somewhat rattled herself, Ginny's brown eyes were soft as she laid one small hand on her husband's arm, squeezing gently in comfort. "Harry, it's all right, calm down. I'm sure this isn't what it looks like. Dumbledore wasn't always the most open, maybe, but –"

"_Right here, _Ginny! In his _own handwriting!_" He shook her off, uncrumpling the parchment again to brandish the wrinkled sheet to the group, his voice tight and rising sharply as he read aloud. "'_I will send owls to the Potters and the Longbottoms tomorrow, as this choice cannot be made in any fairness without them, but made it must be, for it would be an unconscionable dereliction to leave such an opportunity to blind chance.'"_

Had Neville not known her for nearly twenty years, he would have seen nothing but cold, even disapproving detachment in Hermione's thin-set mouth and flinty look, but the edge to her voice would have betrayed her own distress to even a casual observer, and her hands were fidgeting nervously with the strap of the sling that held baby Hugo asleep at her side. "That was the first day, though, even if it's real – which we don't know. He could have changed his mind."

"Or he coulda flat lied to ya," Seamus shrugged with an odd, one-sided gesture. "Same's he felt fair t'do with anyone else he pleased. Why should ya be any different?"

Ron shot him a withering glare. "You're _not _helping." He had stepped forward to place himself between Seamus and Harry as if needing to physically prevent a fight, though Neville knew that even if his friend had been inclined to lose his temper, young Thomas would prove a better impediment than any six-foot-plus ex-Auror.

Seamus didn't appear the least intimidated as he shrugged again, but his face had colored deeply, and Neville knew that it was the insult of Ron's implication more than anything else. "Just sayin'."

"I don't need this!" Harry's exclamation snapped everyone's attention back immediately, and Neville felt a pang of what was almost pity for the other man as he gestured wildly at where the children played, still half-oblivious to what had erupted among their parents. He was clearly trying very hard to prevent himself from flying completely off for their sakes, but it wasn't an easy battle, his words growing faster and more fervent even as he managed not to outright shout them. "I've moved on! I…I'm _married, _I've got _kids, _I…he's dead! This is supposed to be…_over_."

The last word was a pleading whisper, and an uncomfortable silence came down on its wake, no one knowing quite what to say, Neville himself included. He was right, of course. This was supposed to be over, or at least the part of it that was intrigues and secret messages and trying to figure out your destiny in the war that had left so much mess that _was _in the here and now. The lives of adults had so many enigmatic horrors of their own without reviving the settled cryptograms of adolescence.

The awful stalemate was broken within moments, however, as an ear-splitting shriek tore through the stillness, and James came running over at full tilt, oblivious to whether he had intruded on anything as he barreled into Harry's knees and thrust one tiny finger up at his father. "BIT!" His round face was beet red, his eyes welling hugely as his lower lip trembled pathetically. "I got BIT, Daddy! PEGGY BITTED ME!"

All mysterious parchments were forgotten as Neville whirled, seeking out his daughter and unsurprised to find that Hannah already had her firmly by the elbow. "She—"

"Oh, I know," Hannah snapped sternly. "I've got it! We're having a nice little talk about keeping our teeth to ourselves!"

Aware that he had an audience at least potentially receptive to his unjustly inflicted agonies, James began to wail loudly, and Neville winced as Harry knelt to wrap the little boy in his arms, rubbing his back and hushing softly into the matching black mop of cowlicks. "I'm so sorry, Harry," he offered. "The twins are going through a biting phase. We're trying, but…."

"It's okay," Harry glanced up, smiling tightly. "Impossible, sometimes, I know. They're their own little people. It's not…it's just…." His green eyes dropped to the parchment that had fallen to the grass beside him, squeezing tightly shut as his voice cracked. "It's not…all those...all the times…he…he…I…after I…."

Ginny bent down beside him, folding the scrap into the pocket of her robes as she carefully pried the now quieted, hiccupping child from Harry's arms and scooped him up onto her own hip. "Let's go home, love."

"I don't want to go home!" Harry shook his head fiercely, though he made no effort to rise. "I want answers!"

"Ginny's right, mate," Ron reached down, scooping both hands under Harry's arms to pull him to his feet with a somewhat forced smile. "Answers can come later…you need to take a breather first. Kids're probably just about ready for a kip anyway, Ginny can make you a cuppa, we can all talk about it properly where there aren't fifty people staring, y'know?"

He seemed about to protest, but then Harry looked around, noticing for what appeared to be the first time that the gathering had fallen strangely quiet, and while only the children were staring openly, the adults were _not _staring with an awareness that was just as pointed. The flush of hurt and anger changed abruptly to one of embarrassment, and he quickly mumbled his agreement, hurrying with Ginny to collect Albus from where he had been playing with the Smiths as Ron bundled up his own daughter, Rosie, and their assorted bags.

Their regrets and farewells were awkward and hurried, but thankfully everyone seemed determined no to make a big deal of whatever had happened, and it wasn't until after the Potters and Weasleys had all Apparated away that Susan joined where Neville and Seamus were still standing uncomfortably, her pretty features set in a stern, suspicious frown. "Mind if I ask what the bloody hell that was all about?"

"Yeah, I'd like to know myself." The second voice from just behind Neville startled him, and he turned quickly, surprised anew when he saw who it was how quietly Anthony could move. "If it's none of my business, that's fine, but, um…whatever those birds brought you two seems to have thrown Potter six spells from Sunday, and you're a pretty interesting shade of green yourself."

"As opposed to the fetching reddish-purple Seamus has turned." Susan said, holding out her hands to take Thomas' obliviously limp body. "You didn't say anything to Harry, did you?"

"Nothin' too much," Seamus insisted.

Neville hurried to his friend's defense, realizing now that at least Susan thought that her husband's notoriously sharp tongue and lingering grudge against Harry had been the cause of the ruckus. "He actually didn't."

Susan did not look entirely convinced, but the matter was thankfully dodged entirely as Anthony spoke up again, motioning at the piece of parchment that Neville only now realized he was still holding. "So what is it, Commander? Something about Dumbledore?"

"Someone sent us pieces of his diary, it looks like." He held it out so that they could all get a clear look, pointing to the date at the top with his other hand. "It's from the day he first heard the prophecy about us, and –"

"That's impossible," Anthony interrupted tersely. "It can't be from his diary."

"I'm not saying _he _sent it, obviously, Tony," Neville almost chuckled. "But it's definitely his…Harry and Ron and Hermione were all really sure it's his writing."

"It might look like it, but it's not his. I'd put my wand on it." The absolute conviction with which he spoke would have been unusual enough to give Neville pause, but much more alarming was the look on his face, as if caught between guilt and disbelief.

"What makes you so sure?" Susan asked. "You've barely glanced at it."

There was a long, wavering pause, Anthony's dark eyes no longer seeming to see them, but looking out over the grounds with the chill, haunted expression he recognized from all of them in the moments when the reality of sunlight and children's laughter dissolved to the memories of the dark battlefield. His tone was flat, hollow, a carefully emotionless recitation. "Because Dumbledore's diary is sealed in a chamber in the wall of that castle, and there's no way anyone can ever get to it, because the only people who could have been dead for ten years now."

Neville blinked, confused. "_Excuse_ me?"

"We…." Anthony took a deep breath, forcing his eyes back to the present and to Neville, though the ghosts remained visible in them. "Oh, hell, Commander, I'm sorry. We should have told you – _I _should have told you years ago. Way back during that year, a couple days after Mike got tortured, he and Terry and Steve and I went on kind of a mission without telling you. We called it Operation Alexandria."

The confession came as if he expected to be kicked out even after all this time, but Neville was far too bemused that there had been an internal rebellion to his rebellion – and from _Ravenclaw_, of all places – to be actually upset. "You did a mission with the DA behind my back?"

"Not DA, not exactly," he amended. "We were just so afraid that something would happen to all those priceless books in the library during the battle, and we wanted to make sure they'd be safe, even if the library was destroyed. I mean, they're irreplaceable, and so we…we kind of stole them."

"Merlin's wand, Tony! You _stole them?!_" If the confession had been to secret midnight orgies with the girls of Slytherin, Neville could not have been more shocked than by the idea of those four young men _stealing _a priceless collection of literature, and he was grateful that Susan and Seamus seemed just as taken aback as Anthony continued hurriedly.

"The ones in the library now are copies. The real ones were sealed in a secret chamber to be kept safe and retrieved after the battle, but we were paranoid. Mike knew he would have told anything with what they did to him, so we didn't want to just leave it up to bravery, you know? We set the spells that the only way to even find the chamber again, much less open it was with two of us working together. No point to Polyjuice or Mimicking Charms or forcing us either…it had to be with blood willingly shed."

Neville wished there was a convenient hard surface to beat his forehead against. Ten years, and not only could Dumbledore apparently meddle from beyond the grave, but his most brilliantly unpredictable officers – whatever Anthony said, he had no doubt Operation Alexandria had been Michael and Terry's idea – could still give him a headache. "So, you're saying that opening it again and getting the books back absolutely required two out of you and Mike and Terry and Steve." He tried not to wince at the nod of confirmation. "And you're the only one left."

"Exactly."

Seamus took the parchment from Neville's hand, examining it closely. "Couldn't this be part o' the copy, then? Even if it ain't the real thing proper?"

Anthony sighed deeply, shaking his head. "When I found out the library had been destroyed, I thought maybe the chamber would have been breached. I mean, we were brilliant, sure, but we were still teenagers, and we were working really fast and really frightened. As soon as I got out of hospital, I went back to check, but they were just glad that only a few of the rare collection had been destroyed beyond recovery, and no one said anything about duplicates or a stash or anything, and…ok, I was a coward. I kept my mouth shut, since I couldn't get them back anyway."

The tone of self-recrimination there dissipated the last of the frustration Neville had felt against his former officers, not out of pity, but from a deep personal understanding of exactly what lay beneath. That burden of knowing that you had done things that had been the only possible decent option at the time, but which you could never share with an outsider without looking morally reprehensible. "It's not being a coward," he smiled darkly. "I don't go around telling anyone who isn't here that I stole feeder rats from Hagrid to teach fourteen year-olds the Killing Curse."

Anthony did not look mollified. "I should have told you…I just didn't think it would ever matter, and that's not fair."

He was relieved when Susan cut in, ever practical. "Then if I follow you, one of the copies that was destroyed was Dumbledore's diaries?"

"Along with most of the rest of D-F, yeah."

Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully, and she adjusted Thomas against her shoulder, staring up at the rebuilt stone of Ravenclaw tower as if the answers would be patterned on the unweathered new walls. "So you were wrong, then, and someone did get their hands on the originals."

"No." Anthony gestured to the monument, and Neville realized with a shiver that it was placed where one of the very young men they were now discussing had fallen, the first casualty of that long night. "The only way I could be wrong is if one of the other three managed to survive, and since Mike and Terry were cremated and I saw both halves of Steve with my own eyes, I'm saying that's not exactly likely."

Neville nodded thoughtfully, looking back to the parchment that now seemed far more malevolent than mysterious. "The question is, then, who is forging Dumbledore's diaries and sending them to us, and why?"

"That's about the size of it," Anthony agreed, extending his hand to Seamus. "If you're willing to give me that, I could take it back to the Ministry, run some Charms over it…and Harry's too."

"Sure." Seamus handed it over at once, but the vivid blue eyes never left it, and Neville could see that his mind was working keenly, alive with the almost-Slytherin cunning that had alternately made him such a dangerous opponent and such a dear asset through their long and rocky friendship. "I'd check it some other ways too, I would. Magic's easy 'nuff t'block…give it a go for fingerprints, maybe some fibres or a hair or sommat caught in the wax o' the seals, that sort. I still got a few connections might even be able t'get us things like DNA and a bit o' the fancier --"

"That won't be necessary, Seamus," Anthony said distractedly, his wand already humming and flaring softly as he moved it over the sheet. "I'm an Unspeakable and an Auror, you know. We've got plenty of ways that don't rely on Muggle tea-leaf reading."

Seamus crossed his arms with a smile that bordered between open pride and a derisive sneer. "That Muggle tea-leaf readin' came a lot closer t'catchin' me than ya lot did."

Anthony's mouth tightened, but Neville spoke up first, trying to cut the argument off before it could go any further. "We were your friends, Seamus, we were all DA. Of course you knew how to avoid us better than them."

For an instant, it seemed that his attempt had only thrown fuel on the fire, but then Seamus caught himself, shrugging with slightly exaggerated casualness. "Forget it. Ya want to do it, do it your own way. I don't proper care whether someone's wantin' to throw Potter into fits or not. Dumbledore's dead, and there ain't no matterin' whether he chose, the Potters chose, your parents chose, Fearless Leader, or the man in the effin' moon chose some near-on thirty years ago 'bout another bloke what's been dead for ten."

"I want to agree with you, I do," Neville sighed. "Hell, if these really were his diaries, I probably would. Whether I was not-chosen by whoever not-chose me doesn't honestly make any difference to things now. But this means that someone's got an agenda that _is _about now, and that's what I don't like."

"And that, Commander," Anthony smiled, folding the parchment carefully and tucking it into the interior breast pocket of his robes, and for all that he could so often be a quiet academic who seemed suited only to the laboratory or library, the spark in his eyes was a warning that would be foolish to ignore. "That is exactly what I'm going to find out for all of us."

OOO

Neville eased the kitchen door closed slowly, careful not to let the old wood creak any more than absolutely necessary before the latch clicked and he turned, giving his wife a wry, tired smile. "Exciting day today. Even Trev went down pretty easily."

Hannah didn't look up from the vast pile of parchment and thick, open ledgers spread across the table, pushing one golden tendril back from where it had fallen into her face as she ran her quill through a column of numbers that he couldn't help but notice turned an unfortunate scarlet beneath the stroke. "That's nice…," she murmured distractedly. "At least the bedtime wars weren't something you needed to fight again."

He unclasped his outer robe, hanging it on the back of the second chair as he tried not to wince at the darkly-written _Final Notice of Arrears! _scrawled across one of the parchments on the edge of the heap. "I'm not fighting the other one again either, love. Whatever Tony gets from those pages, it'll just be about arresting whoever thought they were going to start trouble or make a statement or whatever they wanted to do, it's not as if they were threats or anything."

"I just don't like it," she said a little testily. "Makes me nervous, and we've got plenty of other things to worry about."

"Not looking good, then?"

Now she did look up, and even in the warm candlelight, he couldn't help but notice the drawn, exhausted look to her lovely face, the splotches of ink on the side of her cheek and the slight swelling of her mouth where she had been chewing her lower lip. "Neville, this is a lot worse than not looking good, and you know that."

He sighed knowingly, squeezing her shoulder in silent support as he crossed to the stove. A flick of his wand lit one of the dozen burners into blue-hissing life, and _Aguamenti _filled the kettle even as he summoned it from the drying board. "Let me make some tea, and we'll take a look together. It can't be that bad."

"Go ahead with the tea," she conceded bleakly, "but you're not going to like it."

"If you haven't switched brands on me, I'm sure I will." Neville opened the caddy, sniffing deeply at the dark leaves in mock concern. "I might not be the best in the kitchen, but I think tea I can manage."

Hannah made a face at him, but even if it was brief and tight, almost manic, he was glad to hear her laugh. "Don't be a pixie."

"Sorry."

The smile deepened, softened, but there was still little real humor behind it. "No you're not."

"But my tea-making skills?" He pressed, motioning the leaves into two cups, then adding sugar and getting the milk from the icebox. "Those are all right, aren't they? Honesty is vital to a marriage, Hannah. I'd hate to think you were holding out on me all these years to spare my feelings."

Hannah laughed again, then shook her head as if berating herself for the moment of levity, her expression falling again as she pointed with the end of her quill to the recently-reddened column in the nearest open ledger. "Neville, stop it. This is serious. I've run the figures for April."

"And?" He had dropped all joking himself, carrying the cups over to the table and looking at the numbers himself while the water boiled.

"We're just about bleeding gold, here," she sighed, and he had to suppress a shudder of his own as he saw the final tally at the bottom of the page. A loss of Γ302.9.4 in a single month was no minor jinx. "I've had to let Morris go, and I'm probably going to have to see if one of our friends can take the kids while we're at work, because we just can't afford to put them with the nanny any more, and if I'm going to have to be taking on the work of three people at the _Cauldron_, there's no way I can watch them myself."

He nodded grimly, running through a mental tally of the families they knew and rather horrified to abruptly realize how many of the witches had recently taken jobs, disqualifying them from any ability to help out with the issue of childcare. "What if I go part-time with Sprout?"

"Your salary at Hogwarts is the only thing we can rely on at all right now," Hannah protested. "Even if they don't pay Assistant Professors that well, and as it is I don't know what we're going to do in the summer."

"Maybe we can lay off someone else temporarily? You know I'll pitch in."

Her voice betrayed the tense undercurrent of tears she was refusing to shed, and she closed the ledger, almost slamming it. "The cook's all we have left, Neville. You can help, sure, but…."

"What if we closed the kitchen?" he persisted, motioning to the door of the large walk-in pantry behind them. "It's our biggest Galleon-loser anyway, since people are being so much tighter these days. They just aren't eating out so much, and even magic can't keep meat forever."

Hannah seemed to consider it seriously for several seconds, then her shoulders slumped, and she waved a hand in rejection of the idea. "We'd be a brothel, then."

"I did _not _–"

She smiled faintly at his surprise, wagging the quill at him. "An establishment that provides only alcohol and lodgings is legally classed as a brothel. You need food to be an inn. Archaic, but that's how it goes, and the licensing on one of those is a fortune, not to mention the reputation."

He wanted to argue, but he knew that she had grown up in the innkeeping business, and it was as useless to debate her on the finer points of the governing rules and regulations as it would be for her to challenge him on the classification of a plant. The kettle had begun to whistle, and he summoned it over, careful to take only the wooden handle as he poured the water into their waiting cups, then returned it to the stove, snuffing the burner beneath with a quick wave of his wand. "So we go to a tavern, then. Drinks only, no rooms. Doesn't save us as much, maybe, but every Knut helps right now."

"We might have to…or we might just go bankrupt at this rate." She lashed her wand over the table in frustration, shoving the entire lot into a single messy stack and pushing it to the far end of the table so that she could cross her arms on the bare wood, leaning over them and wrapping her teacup in both hands. "We're so far in the red it's not even funny…your salary is just barely keeping up our family expenses, and if I don't want collectors coming around, I'm going to have to start cutting into that, and then I don't know what we'll do. Between no business and no credit, it's _killing _us."

As much as Neville wished he could say she was exaggerating, it was more than the cold numbers that made it true, and he felt the knots in his shoulders like embedded curses as he looked down into his own cup. The immediate aftermath of the war had been surprisingly easy, flush with victory and the confiscated assets of dead Death-Eaters soothing the damage, and everyone still confident that the pieces would come together as easily as they had after the First War in the seventies.

This time, however, it had been different. The Muggle-Borns simply hadn't come _back_, for the most part, nor had many of the Half-Blood and mixed families who had fled the MBRC, and the wizarding population itself had taken a devastating hit in the loss of what almost amounted to an entire generation at Hogwarts, a generation that was now not having young children, not buying homes, not filling out the young workforce, not spending money that too often was simply not available. It had been a miracle of diplomacy that the Goblins were still willing to work with wizarding kind at all, but credit was viciously tight, interest rates prohibitive, and for those like himself who were at all publically affiliated personally with Harry, so much as the loan of a single Knut was flat refused.

Under the layered burdens, dozens of businesses had never re-opened or been forced under in the decade since, and even the once-prosperous Diagon Alley had begun to show shuttered gaps in the pared-down storefronts where glittering spells declared SALE! in every window in increasingly gaudy desperate pleas for business. Those shoppers who did trickle through watched their gold fiercely, and where once they had been more than happy to linger over a plate of shepherd's pie and several pints of premium ale, now if anything, it was a single pint "of whatever's cheap."

He chuckled dryly. "Maybe we should start charging at the door. K2 for adults, K1 for the little ones. That's all we're used for now, you know."

"Tight-wanded Gobbies'll just Apparate or Floo," she grimaced.

"Well then, that's all there is for it." Neville took a deep draught of the tea, then slapped both hands decisively down onto the tabletop. "I'll take a look in the _Prophet, _start putting my C.V. out there for a second job. Maybe Harry would take me on as a part-time Auror. I'm not that out of practice, and I'm still in okay shape."

"Okay?" Hannah raised one eyebrow, staring pointedly at the tightly muscled line of his forearm revealed by his rolled-up cuffs, then poking at her own midsection distastefully. "Make me feel like a flabby old hag."

"Not a word of it." He got to his feet, circling around behind his wife to lean low over her, nuzzling his face into the crook of her neck as his hands slid down her shoulders. "You can say that the finances are desperate, you can tell me that we're going to have to sell this place entirely and move in with Gran –"

Her eyes widened in horror, and she smacked his hand where it had begun to move down her chest. "—Oh, don't even incant it!"

"—but you start criticizing a single one of those glorious curves and so help me…." Neville continued as if she hadn't said anything, cupping her breasts through her robes and savoring the soft, ample weight of them. True enough, after three children, she no longer had the tight physique of a soldier, but she was far from heavy, and he personally delighted in the return of the femininity he had found so intoxicating when she had first startled him out of a friend's innocent oblivion with the heather-gray sweater that still fit and that he still loved.

His fingers began to rub against the soft blue fabric, his mouth finding the pulse at her throat, and her head tipped back into his chest, her eyes closing. "Mmmm…Neville…"

"If I have to show you…."

"Neville."

"I will consider it my marital duty to –"

"_NEVILLE!"_

He froze, looking up as innocently as possible from where he had gone to his knees, his mouth hovering a fraction of an inch over her newly-exposed cleavage, his hands still at the buttons of her robes. "Hmm?"

Unfortunately, she had clearly shaken the gathering arousal, pushing him firmly back and closing the robes all the way to her throat again with a reproachful look. "You're not distracting me."

"Damn."

With a small, regretful sigh, he returned to his chair, sipping again at the now-tepid tea as Hannah smiled at him in a way that he had come to know meant _I-love-you-but-you-can-forget-winning-this-one. _In the early days of their relationship, he had occasionally challenged it, but he had eventually learned that when _that_ smile was involved, there was a kind of Hufflepuff immutability that no amount of Gryffindor fervor could budge. "You're _not _going back to the Aurors. No matter what. It was bad enough when I had to worry about losing my boyfriend, my fiancé, or my new husband, but it's still a dangerous line of work with all these Separationist/Reunificationist issues right now, and I will find a way to make the dead wish they were deader if you even consider leaving me with four kids."

He almost missed it, there was no change in her tone, but when he saw the almost mischievous spark in her green eyes when his jaw dropped, he knew it had been no mistake. "Four…you're sure, then?"

She nodded, patting her stomach gently beneath the table. "I got a positive this morning."

"I…." Neville shook his head, trying to sort out the swirl of emotions that had caught him unexpectedly at the news. He shouldn't have been surprised, really, they'd both had their very strong suspicions before she'd even officially been late, but it was a different matter entirely to have it confirmed, and he had to make the grin win out. "That's wonderful, Hannah!"

Her answering smile was bittersweet, and she reached across to take his hand, running her thumb in circles around the scars on his palms. "You don't have to pretend, love. I know you're happy, but I also know you're thinking we can't afford it right now, and that you're right."

"We're going to make a way to afford it," he said with no small measure of stubbornness himself. "And we're going to find a way to hire someone to give you the time off you'll need when you're due. Maybe the Aurors aren't an option, but there are a couple of other things I've been turning down, and it might be time to let go of a little pride, you know?"

Her thumb stilled on his hand, and something almost cold snapped through her look. "I'm not having you take Malfoy's offer to re-design the gardens at the Manor. That was an _insult." _

"No, not hardly!" Neville said quickly, making no effort to hide his distaste. "But there's been a lot of pressure to write a book about that year, and there's that seat on the Wizengamot…."

Hannah's face was unreadable, her tone so carefully measured that the disapproval came through clearer than if she had scorned it outright. "I thought we all agreed that we were going to be more or less Silencio beyond those first couple of interviews?"

He looked down, closing his hand over hers but not meeting her eyes. "I'm sure that they'd understand."

Fingers that were delicate but work-callused slipped beneath his chin, raising his face to find hers only inches away as she had slid to the edge of her chair, leaning in towards him. "Neville, I'm touched, but we're selling the _Cauldron_ long before I see you write some sordid tell-all about the DA. It'd be almost like selling one of the children."

He felt his mouth smile against his will. "It would have to be Ernie. He doesn't talk yet, and he's cute as a beetle's nose. The twins would need to go as a set, and I'm not sure what people would pay once you put all the necessary warnings on them."

Hannah laughed softly, really just a breath of sound, sliding the rest of the way out of her chair to settle on his knee, her arms now wrapped behind his neck as their foreheads rested together. "Hagrid would love them…right up his alley."

"He would, wouldn't he?" He kissed her gently, barely more than a brush of lips, then his eyes closed, and though he wrapped his arms around her waist, drawing her further onto his lap, his voice was solemnly all-business. "The Wizengamot, though, that's not betraying anyone or any promises, that's just something I haven't _wanted_ to do."

"I don't blame you," she said quietly, but there was just as much cooly necessary practicality in her tone, despite their position. "You're a good leader when you need to be, obviously none of us are going to question that, but you're just not a politician. You're too absolutely lousy a liar."

"I am. I'd be rubbing robes with a half-dozen people I once arrested." It was an observation more than an argument, and he was grateful that she seemed to know.

"You can be a lot more gracious than Seamus."

"I know _nothing_ about the law."

"You have a good sense of justice, though, and it's not a solicitor's position."

He sighed deeply. "You're trying to make me feel better about it because you know I'm going to take it, aren't you?"

Her whisper was warm in his ear, her chuckle a soundless little flutter of breath. "You already have, haven't you?"

Neville stiffened, startled, almost unseating her as he pulled back abruptly to look her full in the face in disbelief. "How --?!"

"Someone had already looked at the ledgers this morning," she pointed out, and he felt his cheeks heat, even as there was a twinge of embarrassment that at twenty-seven years old, he still blushed like a schoolboy when caught. All the worse and yet all the better in its own way that he knew she thought it was charming, and he could see that in her eyes now, a fond ribbon through a tangle of emotions too complex for him to hope to unweave in a thousand years. "You never put things back right, and as I said, you're a lousy liar."

"I haven't actually signed anything yet," he admitted, "but I talked to Justin today. He's going to get the official parts underway, and I could start within the month if I decide to go through with it. Sprout says that she'll still put me down as her replacement when she retires in the next two or three years, even if I don't serve the full recommended tenure as an assistant. Something about unofficial teaching experience."

Hannah settled back into his arms again, kissing him slowly and deeply, a kiss that was in every way love while neither needing nor withholding desire. When at last it broke, he could see tears in her eyes, even though they hadn't quite spilled over. "Thank you."

"We're not losing the _Cauldron_, Hannah," he assured her with all the quiet, solemn sincerity he was capable of. "It's been in your family too long, and when things pick up again, it's still the best piece of real estate in the wizarding world for an inn."

She kissed him again, and this time there was a little more heat to it, her voice a little lower, a little silkier, her lips remaining closer and brushing his with a teasing shiver. "Or a tavern or a brothel, as the case may be."

"Mmm, yes, a brothel, that's right." One hand had found its way under the hem of her knee-length robes, and it was making its way with languid purpose up the silken length of her thigh. "We should leave all our options open, shouldn't we?"

"Life…" The word slid into a gasp, and although Hannah was sometimes unsettled by the remains of wandless magic he had retained from his ethereal years in Avalon, there was no protest now as a glance snuffed the candles, plunging the kitchen into a rich darkness where for a few minutes, maybe even hours, they could pretend the pile of parchment on the table's far end did not exist. "Is all about…choices."

OOO

It was bearable if you remembered to breathe only through your mouth and put a good amount of camphor under your nose, and but the Nzumbi Yams still needed to be peeled, sliced, and dried before the tubers could be used in the final exam, and he couldn't entirely blame Sprout for passing the task off to him. He rather wished someone had earned detention to help, but the students had an alarming instinct for knowing exactly when it was in their best interest to behave impeccably, and he held his breath entirely as he sliced into the putrescent skin of a particularly ripe specimen. Maybe he could ask one of the Bell twins to stay behind tomorrow. They had this silly idea of wanting to grow up to be Herbologists.

A fit of sudden coughing caught his attention, and he looked up to see Bill Weasley standing just inside the door of the greenhouse, his face twisted in horrified disgust as he held his nose so firmly that it looked as if he were trying to break it. Neville couldn't help but grin, holding out the pot of camphor. "This'll help."

The response was muffled beneath his hand, but the gratitude was obvious, and once he had his own gelatinous white mustache, Bill took a deep, careful breath through his mouth, grimacing but apparently deciding he was capable of enduring it after all. It was a little cruel, maybe, but Neville remembered how long it had taken to round up the Jumping Junipers the week before after the fourth-years had been taught _Relashio_, and he didn't hesitate as he cut into the yam anew, his expression wholly innocent. "Need something?"

For a moment, Bill seemed to reconsider his entire errand, then the unmistakable look of a wizard declaring war on an inanimate object set his jaw, and he leaned deliberately over the table, almost managing not to turn green between the livid scars. "What's this I hear about you giving up all your smelly green things to go play politics?" He drew his wand, pointing it archly at Neville. "As the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, I feel it's my official duty to check you for the influence of Dark Magic."

Neville laughed at the feigned severity, then shrugged pragmatically. "No need to look any further than my pockets, I'm afraid."

"Money troubles?"

"An Assistant Professor's salary's well enough if you're getting all your room and board at Hogwarts, but living off-campus and supporting a family's not the same."

Bill frowned, the look oddly between sympathy and bemusement. "What about the income from the _Cauldron?"_

"There isn't any," Neville sighed. "Quite the opposite, actually. We're losing gold wand over spell."

The frown turned distasteful in a way that had nothing to do with the yams. "So you're throwing yourself into the snakepit?"

"Not a lot of choice in the matter." The knife came down perhaps a little harder than was strictly necessary, the thick, viscous juice spattering halfway up the sleeve of his robes. "You know how it is being on the Gringotts hexed list."

Continuing his work was an excuse not to meet the other man's eyes, he knew, but it was a perfectly good excuse, and he was able to hear the genuine understanding in Bill's voice easily enough. Somehow, that was almost worse than patronization, knowing that Bill himself had grown up on the thin verge of poverty, and that meant he really _did _understand, but it also meant he _knew. _Stretching a roast to three days of casseroles, _Engorgio _on children's shoes that hadn't quite worn out yet. "It's not just Gringotts. Goblins keep together pretty tightly…Fleur was invited to clean out her vault at Braudlack's as well."

The news startled him, and now he did look up, but the question was answered with a shake of the ginger head before he even had a chance to ask. "We've been keeping our savings and investments in Euros at Banque Populaire, just holding what we need for month to month expenses in Galleons. You might want to think about the same thing. Keep the Goblins out of it altogether."

Neville nodded thoughtfully, his expert eye locating a spot on one yam that was actually rotten and excising it with a quick twist of the blade. "I don't know if Hannah would go for something like that. I've heard that Muggle banks collapse a lot."

"No worse than the whims of Goblins, mate," Bill pointed out. "You just want to make sure you take a good solid look at where you're putting your money, you know? Use some plain common sense. I mean, a lot of Muggles are losing the robes off their backs right now, but anyone should have known the Yanks were idiots selling each other bubble housing."

His hand froze mid-slice, certain he'd heard wrong. "Houses made of _bubbles?"_

"I know!" Bill threw up both hands, almost laughing. "And now they're acting like it's a shock that they're bursting!"

It seemed so impossible that for a second, he thought the other wizard was playing with him, but Bill seemed completely sincere, and really, wasn't that just like _people_, when you thought about it? Always jumping on the next new thing, no matter how foolish. He hadn't been born for the Portable Floo fiasco of the seventies, but it was still talked about enough. "Some ideas…" he murmured. "Thanks for the advice, though. We'll think about it once we're not just taking it with one hand and passing it to creditors with the other."

"That won't be long," Bill said a little too brightly. "Wizengamot's a cush post…speaking in Sickles and Knuts. Six months, and you'll forget you ever worried about gold."

"You sound like you're consoling me."

"Maybe a little."

Neville waved his wand, sending the pile of chopped yams to the drying racks, then started the next, regarding Bill curiously. "Percy hate it that much?"

"Oh, he loves it! Never been happier." He had grown used to the fond incredulity that the other Weasley brothers so often used in talking about Percy, but this time there was something more as well, and it made him a bit nervous. Especially since it sounded rather like warning. "But he's always loved that sort of thing, Nev – you remember, he nearly burst his wand over being a Prefect – and he only has one vote."

"Everyone only has one…." Neville trailed off, a bit nervous becoming a lot nervous as he saw the warning vanish entirely, replaced by a soft, almost pitying smile. "What?"

"Oh, Merlin, you really don't have any idea, do you?"

Whether or not Bill was ten years older, Neville had long gotten out of the habit of people looking at him with that particular brand of fond tolerance, and it irked him more than he expected. "I _have _been looking into it: criminal and civil matters, each MW gets one vote, only exception being the passage of certain forms of law of a regional nature, in which voting is restricted to MW's from the affected district."

"Lovely. Hermione would be proud," Bill said dryly. "Also complete dragon dung."

"I don't want to --" Neville began, but he was quickly cut off.

"Want to or not, it's facts. Why do you think they've been so keen to get you on in the first place?" Bill had leaned in closer still, and he fought off the brief and entirely counterproductive urge to object to being treated like a child by the extremely childish means of purposefully squirting juice in his fellow teacher's face.

Instead he settled on something less overtly juvenile but just as satisfying, pulling the largest tuber from the basket and balancing it on end on the table, then motioning to Bill to steady it. "Hold this…_gently. _Don't squeeze. I need a different knife for this one…it's older, more fibrous."

He took his time looking through the overstuffed drawers of gardening implements, pushing aside each item with all the care for blades and pointy parts that he always advised his students and usually didn't heed at all himself. There was a gagging noise behind him, and it was an effort not to turn and look, to pretend that he hadn't heard it at all and hide the smile as he continued to look. "It feels like a –"

"You want to come down here and pester me, you're volunteering to help," Neville said simply. There the knife was, on its side in the corner of the drawer behind a ball of Automatic Expansion Twine, but he didn't reach for it instantly, taking the opportunity instead to give the drawer a quick tidy. "_All_ my students know that."

"I was not volunteering to hold something that looks like a festering, leperous sausage and smells like month-old nappies. And if I look like a student to you, you must be teaching a different batch of kids than I -- _Sangdieu!_"

Neville couldn't hide the laugh as he turned, knife in hand, to see the yam pulsing menacingly and the amount of yellow-green fluid that had spattered the front of Bill's robes and a good portion of his face. "I said gently."

"I was gentle!" Bill protested. "You set me up!"

"I did not. You insulted it," he replied lightly, but his tone sobered again as he began to carve the yam into neat, even chunks. "I know perfectly well they want me because I've got a bit of celebrity since the DA."

To his credit, Bill continued to steady the tuber until Neville took it from him, only then stepping away to wave his wand over his chest, vanishing the disgusting substance. "It's not for your autograph," he said, and this time, although there was still an air of regret, there was no patronization about it. "They want you because they know you carry the votes and opinions of every witch and wizard under the age of thirty who didn't wear Slytherin green. Throw in Pureblood and how people feel about your parents and your grandmother, and given that as the head of the Auror Department, Harry can't sit, and you're probably the most valuable vote anyone can hope to sway."

Neville sighed deeply, wishing he could argue, but there was nothing for it. Bill was right, and if he was truly honest with himself, he'd known it all along, painting the uncomfortable truth in other excuses for why he hadn't wanted to join the prestigious group of witches and wizards. Despite the stench and the sticky, slimy mess that covered his hands, he wished he never had to leave the greenhouse, hated the idea of being curried and coerced for things he knew dangerously little about, and the humor was forced when he spoke again. "What do you think my odds are of convincing Hannah to sell the _Cauldron_ and move to Zanzibar?"

"If you know what they're up to, it's not that bad," Bill offered, but the reassurance rang hollow, and they both knew it. He shrugged heavily. "The spell's cast anyway, we all know it. Everyone's going to have to choose, whether the Wizengamot gets around to it or not."

There was no need to elaborate further, and Neville winced. Of all the things that being on the Wizengamot might entail, the matter of Reunification was the one he most desperately wanted to avoid. He fidgeted with the end of the tuber, pretending to assess whether to keep it or not, but it was just a means of avoiding Bill's eyes. "I'm assuming with your father, I can guess what you've decided."

"Personally or overall?"

"There's a difference?"

There was a long pause, and Bill waved his wand, conjuring a tall stool to allow him to sit next to the worktable, his long arms folded on one of the few clean patches as he regarded Neville with a disconcerting honesty, the regret in his eyes contradicting the faint smile on his mouth. "My wife's a part-Veela, Nev. It's one thing to try to re-integrate – and I'm all for that when it comes to the society as a whole – but it's another thing to ask them to accept part-humans. There's plenty of wizards who look at her as a dangerous siren-creature. When it comes to it, we're going to have to split."

It made sense, but it was still something he had naively never expected from a member of one of the most openly Muggle-friendly families in the wizarding world, and he felt oddly guilty for having asked in the first place. "Have you told –"

"Not yet." Bill shook his head, then chuckled awkwardly. "Trying to avoid it, you know?"

"I've been trying to avoid the whole mess," Neville admitted quietly. "Just let it work itself out while I raise my kids and try to keep my family afloat. That's the nice thing about plants…" He pushed aside the last piece of yam, regarding it with a kind of nostalgic wistfulness that he knew probably looked incredibly odd to anyone else, considering how revolting it was. "They just want you to weed and water them, and they don't give two Knuts for your political opinions."

Bill flicked his wand, sending the latest batch to join the others on the drying racks, the strange, sad half-smile still on his face. "You won't get very far watering the Wizengamot."

"Zanzibar is looking better and better."

"I think they have internet there too."

He had heard the word before, whispered almost like a hex in connection with the growing problems, but he had never asked about it before. _Well, I don't have that luxury any more, do I? _Neville glanced up, trying to seem only mildly interested. "Internet? What's that?"

"It's half the issue," Bill said darkly. "Lets Muggles communicate with other Muggles all over the world, thousands at a time, faster even than a Patronus. It's –"

"Nevermind," Neville interrupted, shaking his head. "I don't think I want to know right now after all. Just…give me some time, okay?"

Bill was not so easily dissuaded. "I might as well tell you now, Nev. You're about to find out a lot of things you didn't want to know."

"I already --" He never finished. A loud, harsh caw broke the soft rustling of leaves and vines as a raven came diving out of the sky towards the glass ceiling of the greenhouse. For an instant, it seemed the bird was going to plow directly into the transparent barrier, but it flew right through as easily as if the sturdy panes were an illusion, and Neville heard the knife clatter to the tabletop from shock-slackened fingers, and it wasn't just the stink that made it hard to swallow.

Another one. And if this was at all what he thought it was, that meant Galleons to gurdyroots Harry had one too.

TO BE CONTINUED


	3. Mortalem Te Esse Memento

He had been right, of course. This time, it was the bottom half of the diary page that was his, the top – marked 22 March, 1980 – dated for the very next day from the last. Like the other as well, this was written on the same yellowed paper in the same spidery hand. Neville had contacted Harry by Floo almost immediately, abandoning his work in the greenhouse, but by the time he Apparated to the comfortable Bayswater flat the Potters called home, it was no longer just the two of them.

"This is like a bad _Prophet_ serial." Ron rolled his eyes as he saw the scroll in Neville's hand, mimicking the deep, melodramatic voice of a WWN announcer. "Shall the intrepid heroes find a way to foil the Dark Lord with the help of the Mysterious Prophecy? Our readers eagerly await the next installment of _The Dumbledore Diaries!_"

There was a brief titter of chuckles, but it faded quickly, and Harry sighed, picking up his half and turning it over slowly in his hands. "Tony's coming up flat so far, but he's been working on it like mad. So for right now, I say that we take them at face value. If this person or people has gotten access to the content of those diaries somehow, we can't afford to ignore what Dumbledore has to say to us."

Hermione shook her head, and the rather adorable bounce of the short brown ringlets around her face contrasted markedly with her disapproving scowl. "Harry, this _isn't_ what Dumbledore has to say to you."

"We don't know that!" Harry argued immediately.

"Yes, we do." Her voice had taken on the slightly aloof, lecturing quality that she had always used to point out some matter of logic she found painfully obvious. "Let's be generous. Pretend these _are _accurate…it's still day-to-day musings to himself from twenty-eight years ago, _not _a message to Harry Potter in 2008."

Harry didn't give an inch, still clinging to the parchment as if he expected her to take it from him. "He was my mentor, Hermione. I still ask myself every day what he would do, what he would tell _me _to do in a given situation. I base that off of everything I remember about him, all the things he told me, and if those were lies, that definitely changes a _lot_. And there's stuff here that he never mentioned, stuff that's really relevant now, but wasn't when we were all just trying to stop Riddle."

"You sound like you want to let them continue," Neville said cautiously.

"Might be the best way to track them down," Harry shrugged, but there was nothing casual about it, a tight, quick bunching of shoulders already iron-tense. "Maybe we can get more off of ten than we could off of two."

"That, at least, makes sense," he conceded, "but we should give them straight to Tony. Not open them."

Harry looked as shocked as if he had suggested destroying the messages outright. "Neville!"

"I was an Auror too, Harry. The moment we open them, we tamper with the evidence. Besides, what you just said kind of scares the hell out of me."

"How so?"

"Think about it." He took a deep breath, leaning back in his chair to motion at the two parchments as he tried to keep his voice even and utterly professional, despite the temptation to be drawn into the bickering that had erupted between the two old friends. He knew he was the closest thing there to a neutral party, and he had to act like it. "Anyone, _anyone_ with any kind of agenda could be making these up out of whole cloth, but you're letting them have control over how you think, how you feel about someone you still hold at the center of your life, and even to influence decisions that could matter to the entire wizarding world."

Harry seemed to take his words into consideration for a moment, then shook his head, folding his arms stubbornly. "I'm not the one joining the Wizengamot."

"But you are someone people look up to," Neville said quietly, feeling uncomfortably like he was already becoming a politician. "Including people who are."

"Aw, Harry," Ron gave a cheeky grin, "I think Neville just said you're still his hero. That's sweet, mate."

He didn't know if Ron had meant to break the tension, but it had worked nonetheless, and Neville felt himself blush. "Sometimes…just not when he's being like this. All honesty, Harry, this has been your biggest weakness as long as I've known you." He spread his hands, trying not to seem too accusatory. "We've all got our weaknesses. I don't like confrontation unless I'm forced into a situation. You _fixate _on things, and if it's Dumbledore, it's worse."

Harry squirmed a little, smiling in wry self-awareness even as he objected. "We didn't know each other _that _well."

"He's right," Ron agreed helpfully.

Harry's glare couldn't entirely hide his smile. "Traitor."

"It's the truth, though," Hermione sighed, bringing them regretfully back on track. "You have a tendency to get obsessive about things that matter to you…not that it's always a bad thing. It makes you an incredible Auror, one of the best, but it can also be just a little bit dangerous."

"And if we ignore these, and there's something there that _is _important?" It seemed as if Harry was about to lose his temper, but then he stopped, taking a deep breath, and it was unquestionably the Head of the Auror Department who went on. "If you say I'm one of the best there is as an Auror, then maybe you'll trust my police instincts no matter what kind of issues you think I have about Dumbledore."

Ron and Hermione exchanged a look that held some significance Neville couldn't follow, and he wondered if they felt equally outsiders when he was with the survivors of the seventh year. "Okay," Ron said, all traces of joking gone now. "Let's hear these police instincts."

"It's more than a little convenient that the only rare books to be destroyed were D-F. I think Operation Alexandria was a coincidence. Someone stole the copy – having no idea it was a copy – and blasted the books to hide what he'd done. Shredded and burned, no one would have been able to examine too closely to know if it was a copy of a copy they were looking at, and our unknown thief probably would have blamed the quality on nerves. Maybe he wasn't even planning on destroying anything until he saw it wasn't good enough to pass." Harry drew his wand, tapping it thoughtfully against the edge of the table as he leaned back, closing his eyes.

"He keeps them – personal reasons, political reasons, I don't have a clear motive yet – for ten years. Then something relevant _to _that motive comes up, and as much as it's tempting to say that's Reunification, it could be anything." His eyes opened again, and he turned towards the other two men with a lopsided smile. "Remember the Carmichael case?"

Neville returned the smile, amused by the memory. "Looked clear as crystal…bloke comes home, sees his wife shagging the neighbor's brother, and hexes them both into oblivion."

"But then we found out they'd had an open thing for years," Ron added. "And what set him off was seeing his antique wand collection used that way…I get what you mean. It's all about the motive. We know why, we know who."

"So we look through these," Harry used the handle of his wand to push his glasses up on his nose, "Line by line, syllable by syllable, and see if we can figure out the message we're supposed to be getting – from _whoever – _until we know the motive, and trace _that_ back to find the bloke with the open marriage and antique wand collection. Or the stolen copy."

Hermione cleared her throat, and it was like feeling a Charm lift as he saw the look on her face. "Lovely theory, boys, but it doesn't hold water."

"Why not?" Ron frowned.

"You are wildly underestimating real book-lovers. Tony and the rest weren't freaks in being willing to risk their lives for those kind of rare and irreplaceable books. The recovery team wouldn't have just looked down at the mess in the library and said 'oh, well, that's too bad,' they'd have gone to every length possible to restore them, even partially." She paused, steepling her fingers and pressing the tips against her lips in thought. "Now, in fairness, a well-done copy -- especially one created in the kind of real, heartfelt passion they had --might escape notice if damaged already. But a copy of a copy? Not for a second."

"Okay, but in that case, I think Harry's idea of letting it continue makes _more _sense," Ron said slowly, considering her point. "We've got a lot better chance of tracking the agenda and the motive if it's being written for that purpose, you know?"

"Fair enough," Harry agreed as well. "So we can vanish that theory. It's either the real thing – which is a major long shot – a forgery, or a copy from before the Ravenclaws got there. And there's another avenue we can take as well, now that we're getting more than just his inner monologue. He talks about _doing_ things here…says that Frank was in hospital after the 'Dover attack,' but he brought Lily and Alice to Hogwarts for protection while they decided. So –"

Neville sat up straight, his eyes widening as he realized where Harry was going with this. "Gran! She'd know if he spirited Mum away for a while, and probably be able to confirm or deny a lot of the rest, too!"

Harry nodded, then hesitated. "You know I'll have to question her officially, right?"

It was an effort not to scoff openly at the gentle tone. "She was the first witch in the Aurors before she married Gramps. Proud as a Centaur that three generations have worn the badge. She's not going to be offended. If anything, you'll need to watch that she doesn't take over the investigation."

"Then I'll go talk to her now." Harry stood up, collecting his green Auror's robes from where he had draped them over the back of the chair as he nodded his head towards the parchments. "Ron, Hermione, seal these up and get them to Tony, but be sure to make copies for us first, okay?"

Ron nodded, waving a hand casually. "No worries, and good luck."

"Neville, do you want to come with?" Harry offered. "This is about you as much as me."

"I'll be there in a bit. I want to talk to Hermione first."

"All right. See you later. I'm off to Willow Creek."

A turn, a crack, and Harry was gone. Neville turned to Ron, about to ask as politely as possible if he would mind getting lost for a few minutes, but the other wizard was already standing, the parchments tucked neatly into his pocket after a brisk tap with his wand. "Sure, I've got to take these anyway…but if you're having a torrid affair with my wife, it won't be the wand collection I'm cross about."

"No offense," Neville grinned back, "but if I was, between Hannah and Hermione, you'd be the last one I was afraid of."

Ron laughed, giving his wife a quick kiss goodbye before he left; taking the Floo rather than the direct Apparition Neville knew he liked to avoid whenever possible. There were a few moments awkward silence, then Hermoine shifted in her seat, her smile forced. "What is it, Neville?"

He took a deep breath, suddenly uncertain as to whether he really wanted to broach this topic with someone he valued as a friend, even if he knew it was all the better reason for it. "I know Harry really wants these to be genuinely Dumbledore's words –"

She smiled grimly. "You've noticed that too."

"—because it would be so much easier to just fall back on the opinion of someone older and wiser about what to do right now." He kept going, feeling like if he stopped, he might lose his nerve. "But I'm trying to make up my own mind, or at least get as many opinions as I can. Gran's a Separatist, and she has a lot of good reasons, but I know you're for Reunification, and you're a Muggle-Born yourself, so…." The words trailed off, and he just looked at her, hoping she'd understand.

Hermione certainly seemed to, and her eyes widened incredulously. "You'd put my opinion over your Gran's?!"

"I'm not putting anyone's opinion over anyone else's," he corrected her firmly. "But I've always respected your intelligence, you know that."

Another long pause, and Hermione seemed to study the empty table for a very long time before she looked up again, her expression utterly unreadable. "Okay…I'm assuming you want the short version?"

"For now," he agreed. "I just want to have a bit of the other side before Harry questions Gran. I want to have half a chance of hearing if _she's _slanting her answers."

"Short version, then, is that the wizarding world is over, Neville."

Neville blinked, and it took him a few seconds to gather a response to the unexpectedly blunt declaration. "That's…pretty harsh."

"It's true, no matter what side you're on." Now that she had started, she was speaking easily, with all the confidence that had made her such a good Auror, and now such a feared – and desired – solicitor before the Wizengamot. It had never occurred to him before this moment that he would probably be asked to vote on a case that Hermione was either defending or prosecuting, but he felt like it was already true as she continued.

"It used to be that we could live hiding in plain sight, because if someone saw something fishy, it was just their word against what 'everyone knows', and if it was really a big deal, they could be Obliviated before they could ever write a letter, or even, later, make a phone call. It's how we've existed alongside them all this time."

He nodded carefully, feeling unexpectedly on his guard, as if the easiness of it all so far was just to draw him in. "Yeah…"

"But Muggles have magic of their own now, only it's technology, and it's exploded in the last ten years. Now, if a Muggle sees something, they can tell _the entire world _with wizard-style moving-picture proof within _seconds_, long before an Obliviater could even hear about it. Sooner or later, there's going to be something that can't be passed off as a Muggle joke using special effects, and at the same time, we're falling apart."

She had really hit her stride now, using her wand to tap out points on the table as if on an invisible chart. "Our economy is collapsing, our numbers are lower than ever, and people are _leaving_ the wizarding world, not coming back, not to mention that more and more Muggle-Borns are choosing to continue living in _that_ world when they leave Hogwarts because this one really doesn't have many opportunities any more, even for the wizards who were born into it. Hiding in plain sight isn't going to work forever, and we've become too few and too broken by the war to maintain this size of a separate society."

Neville licked his lips, choosing his words with a care that did not come naturally. "A lot of people think that means we need to consolidate and split off completely. Accept that we're not able to maintain an entire second world and become more of a commune, shut off from the Muggles altogether."

"Ducking the entire issue of how much inbreeding that would have to eventually mean," Hermione retorted, "I don't think moving _backwards _is ever a solution, Neville, and that's what it would be."

Now he couldn't help reacting, frowning coolly at her. "I know I asked for your opinion, Hermione, but I don't much like having my entire culture called 'backwards,' thank you."

"It is, though!" She brushed off his rebuke with a toss of her hand. "So much of wizarding society is practically stuck in the dark ages when it comes to individual freedoms, to women's rights, standards of living, ethics, educational opportunities…it's time for wizards and witches to join this millennia."

"It's not that simple," he argued, surprising himself with how much opinion he apparently already had. Or perhaps opinion was the wrong word, because he didn't know how he felt one way or the other, but that didn't mean he couldn't spot a gaping hole when it was directly in front of him. "The Muggles wouldn't just be thrilled to see us if we all had a grand debut in the middle of Hyde Park. Even I remember enough of History of Magic to know that the Inquisition wasn't a very nice thing."

"Muggles have changed, they aren't like that any more –" Hermione insisted, then shrugged as she caught his look, though the certainty of her tone did not lessen in the slightest. "Well, for the most part."

"For the most part? What's that supposed to mean?" Neville pressed, then remembered what Bill had said less than an hour before, hurrying to add, " – and what about all the people who aren't just plain witches and wizards, like Hagrid and Fleur and Teddy? Or partial Lycanthropes, like Sinead and Bernie and Bill? They already have a hard enough time of things."

Hermione seemed at once taken aback and pleasantly surprised rather than offended by his concerns. "Well, those are questions that aren't really suited for the short version if you want real answers."

"And are there real answers?"

"There's my opinion, at least." Now she did hesitate, as if just now realizing that this wasn't yet the Wizengamot. "That's what you wanted, isn't it, Neville? My opinion as a friend?"

"I don't know," he admitted honestly, then sighed deeply, his shoulders slumping as he ran a hand through his hair, wondering idly if this would be the year that those first streaks of premature gray would finally begin to spread. It certainly felt like it lately.

"I think what I wanted was to hear that it's like before, with Pureblood Superiority." The confession sounded tired and somewhat petulant, even to his own ears, and he tried to soften it with a smile. "That it was easy enough to believe it for those who grew up with it, but if you took a real look, it fell apart almost instantly."

"You were hoping your Gran's arguments would fall apart?" Hermione asked kindly.

"Or yours would." He shrugged. "Someone's, anyway."

Her smile was almost humorless, but sympathetic. "I guess I should be flattered, then."

"If you want." Neville checked his watch, seeing that it had been almost fifteen minutes since Harry had left, and he knew he needed to get going. Harry would try to wait for him, but Gran had never been much given to small talk. "Would you mind if we talked again later? Maybe dinner Sunday night at the _Cauldron? _I don't want Hannah to get all this third-hand."

"Of course…and I've got to get back, too." He could almost hear the sigh of relief in Hermione's quick agreement, and the tension lifted from her face, replaced with a comical grimace. "There's only so long I can leave Rosie and the baby with Uncle George before it starts doing terrible things to my blood pressure. Would you mind if I brought Justin along?"

The question made him pause with one arm halfway inside the sleeve of his robes, regarding her uncertainly. "Do you think it would be okay to have the leader of the Unity Party over to my house?"

"As long as you invited the opposition over the next week…but I think you want to do that anyway, don't you?"

Neville sighed, pulling the robe on the rest of the way and using the buttons to avoid her eyes, hoping she wouldn't see that he honestly didn't know which of the two dinners he was looking forward to less. "Want to and should and will are different things sometimes."

"See you on Sunday, then?"

"I'll tell Hannah," he acknowledged stiffly, then stopped as he was about to Apparate. It didn't feel right to leave things like this, and he hoped she could see that the affection in his eyes was real as he turned back to her. "Hermione?"

Her hands paused over the buttons of her own robes, and although there was nothing but professionalism in her voice, her dark eyes seemed somehow vulnerable. "Yes?"

"Thank you." He didn't have time to linger any further, but the hug wasn't at all perfunctory, and he was glad to find that she wasn't at all stiff or awkward against him, and that she chuckled, reaching up to give his nose a sisterly, teasing tap.

"Even if I answered nothing?"

"Especially since you answered nothing."

OOO

"You decided to join us after all?" Gran looked up coolly from her teacup as he appeared in the parlor at Willow Creek, not seeming in the least startled by the sound of his Apparation. There was nothing in her voice or manner that spoke of rebuke, merely a vaguely polite annoyance at the length of time his conversation with Hermione had delayed him, but there was something about her and about being in his childhood home that never quite allowed him past the age of fifteen, and Neville found himself blushing, staring down at his shoes as the heat spread up his cheeks.

"Sorry, Gran. Had a few things I needed to finish up." And he was mumbling. He never did that any more. It was all the more embarrassing that Harry was watching, and he took a deep breath, trying to remind himself that he was twenty-seven years old as he lifted his head and drew back his shoulders deliberately.

"No matter." There was a tiny half-smile of approval barely visible on Gran's mouth when he straightened, and although the feeling of still being a child didn't quite vanish, it eased somewhat as he caught her look. "Mr. Potter has been catching me up on the interesting letters you gentlemen have been receiving. I'm a little surprised you haven't said anything to me before now."

For the first time, he noticed that Harry had copies of the first two messages spread out among the small, delicately flower-edged plates of scones and clotted cream on the table, and he nodded towards them. "I didn't want to bother you if they were just someone's idea of a joke. You can see for yourself, it's pretty unbelievable."

Gran's thin eyebrows raised, and she chuckled dryly. "I am eighty-three years old, Neville. There are very few things that can bother me any more, and if your final year at school didn't accomplish it, I scarce think a few of Dumbledore's ramblings would."

Harry cleared his throat quietly, insinuating himself back into the conversation Neville's arrival had interrupted. "Then you _do _think they are his, Mrs. Longbottom?"

"If not his, then there are a very limited number of people it could be." She switched back into strictly business without a beat, tapping the nearer parchment sharply with one long, elegant if arthritically knotted finger. "You're too young to know, but there are details of the Order here..." Gran glanced towards Neville again, but as if he still wore Auror green. "Officially, your father, for example, was injured on Ministry business in Manchester with an illegal Goblin gambling ring. Only the Order knew he had been in Dover and come within half a hex of catching Yaxley."

"But no one who was in the Order would ever do something like this." Harry protested.

Neville had to fight to keep from smiling as Gran's glare proved abruptly that he was not the only one she could cause to mentally regress a good fifteen years or so as the Head of the Auror Department shrunk down several inches in his chair. "Hasn't anyone taught you never to make assumptions about what people will and won't 'ever do', Mr. Potter?"

Harry began to fumble for an answer, but Neville interceded quickly. "He really took Mum into hiding then, Gran?"

"Alice was staying with me after Frank went into hospital." If there was any pain to discussing the old memories, it didn't show as she broke off a section of scone, spreading it lightly with cream. "No one lived alone during those years, and it would have been even more foolish for a witch who was expecting. I know she received an owl from Dumbledore that summoned her to Hogwarts until nearly the beginning of April on 'most urgent matters', but she never elaborated."

Harry had recovered himself now, and he frowned curiously. "And you didn't ask?"

"No." She said it as if the mere thought was offensively rude, and Neville realized that there was a gap not only of generations, but of culture between the Dales reserve and Harry's suburban southern upbringing that he would probably have done well to explain to his friend beforehand.

Too late now, but thankfully, Harry did not seem nearly as thrown off this time. "So, besides Dumbledore, who might have known what happened during that time?"

"James told Mr. Black absolutely everything, even things he kept from his wife – it is what made him such a natural decoy for the Fidelius Charm – so we may guess reasonably that he would have known." Gran gestured towards him with the tip of her knife. "And your parents, of course, Neville."

"Dumbledore, Sirius, my parents, and yours." The quill suspended over the charmed Auror's notepad moved busily, and Neville was a little surprised to find that, though retired from the elite force almost five years, he could still read it easily. "Four dead and two who can't help us, and we're no closer."

"We know it's coming from someone in the First Order." Neville pointed out.

"Or someone who has access to their memories in a diary or Penesive, someone they confided in or broke to under torture or potion, or even shared reminiscence with under the feeling of safety after Riddle's demise."

Gran's addendum wasn't quite a correction, but a reminder, and Harry sighed, pushing his glasses up on the bridge of his nose as a flick of his wand added those notes as well. "Lovely." He smiled wryly. "Have you considered coming out of retirement, Mrs. Longbottom?"

"Not particularly. My mind may still be sharp enough, but my reflexes are not what they once were."

Her tone was non-committal, but Neville nonetheless caught the sparkle in her eye that said the compliment was both received and appreciated more deeply than she ever would have been willing to admit. He knew she missed the work at times, had seen the way she had flourished in the second Order and more than held her own in the Battle of Hogwarts itself, and not for the first time he thought that the wizarding world had lost something in demanding she choose between a family and her career, no matter what the mores of the time had been. "Dawlish would beg to differ, Gran."

"That was ten years ago," she demurred.

Neville smiled, pressing the point a bit to, if he admitted the truth, brag on her a bit to Harry in a way he knew she wouldn't mind. "And he still has episodes several times a week, according to the Healers."

"Yes, well, back in my day, we were taught to cast a hex that would last properly." This time, the sparkle was brighter, and the edge of pride in her voice not at all hidden. "Alastor and I were the last of that school, though. Do you use a nanny, Mr. Potter?"

The question had come without a moment's segue, and it caught Harry off guard. "Er…only when we go out. Why?"

"If you must, until this matter is solved, you should use your In-Laws exclusively," Gran said in a way that brooked no argument. "Neville, you send the children to me during the day. I insist."

He blinked, startled and more than a bit unsettled by the implication that his family might be in jeopardy from a few cryptic diary entries. "_Gran_?"

Harry, perhaps more worryingly, did not seem nearly as surprised, and was instead nodding as if she had only pointed out the obvious. "Back up to full security measures, then, you think?_"_

"Someone you would ordinarily trust is going to very underhanded lengths to attempt to influence the two of you, and you can neither assume nor afford to misestimate their stability." There was no condescension in her explanation, but nor was there any leeway, and he knew without a shadow of a doubt that if he did not agree, she would be at the doorstep of the _Cauldron _herself to collect the children the following morning. "If they do not see these letters as succeeding towards whatever it is they want, you do not want to leave open too many opportunities to influence you in other ways."

"But this is absurd…." Harry trailed off, shaking his head not in any real argument, but frustration. "Trying to discredit Dumbledore with me? What will that accomplish when no one even knows what his stance would have been, and our mystery person can't just drop that in." Heavy sarcasm twisted his smile. "Something in the next one, maybe? _'I think I'll see who the babies favor, as James would look quite fetching if you added something to his forehead – oh, and by the way, if it ever comes up, I think we should certainly re-join the Muggle world. Hiding makes it so tricky to come by lemon drops_.'"

Gran smiled, clasping her hands on her lap in feigned chagrin. "Those would have been my fault, I'm afraid; the lemon drops."

"Oh?"

Neville laughed, well aware of exactly what it was that had so amused her. "I'll tell you later, Harry. Long story…also why Gran speaks Russian, though."

Harry's dark eyebrows lifted above the rims of his glasses, and he looked at the old witch with a new respect and no small amount of open curiosity. "Definitely want to hear that."

"I can say with some confidence that Dumbledore would have been a Separatist, Mr. Potter." She was back to business again, the moment passed, and Neville was impressed with how completely Harry seemed to have adjusted to this now, following her onto task without a moment's hesitation.

"As you are?"

"Yes, though not at all for the same reasons," she amended. "I believe that society will show itself when it is ready to accept new ideas…the collapse of Communism, for example, after all the wand-wringing, came about en masse and quite organically. Forcing change because of circumstances is rarely as successful, and often bloodier."

"And Dumbledore?"

"He always struck me as quite afraid of magic, even for as powerful a wizard as he was." She spoke slowly, choosing her words with even more care than usual. "He encouraged seeing Muggles as equals, of course, but at the same time, he felt that if we were ever to have too much contact with them, it would inevitably lead to wizard corruption and attempts to rule."

"That's ridiculous," Neville insisted. "There's not one of us for every thousand of them!"

"It's not ridiculous." There was a very strange expression on Harry's face, one that Neville couldn't begin to figure out, but he was looking at Gran as if she had just prompted some kind of profound epiphany. "I…I think I agree with you, Mrs. Longbottom, and I have a good idea why he would have thought so."

"So if this does have anything to do with Reunification," Neville asked cautiously, "you think it's probably someone on the Unity side who's trying to make Harry and I distrust him?"

Gran considered it a moment. "Is there something I have not been told, then, about these letters?"

"I told you everything, ma'am," Harry promised.

"Then I fail to see where you're being turned against him."

Harry gaped at her as if she had just confessed to being completely illiterate. "Because this…these…." The bright flush had reappeared across his cheekbones. "I was always told that Riddle chose me!"

"He did, of course," Gran agreed calmly.

"But in these, Dumbledore – "

"Tell me, Mr. Potter…." She set her now-empty teacup into the saucer without the slightest rattle, and the shrewd glint in her eyes as she leaned towards him only a few inches was the disquieting gleam of an elderly lioness, caged and toothless but not yet declawed. "If you knew that your enemy were going to be taking a particular action – say, perhaps, going to a certain place at a certain time – would this be valuable to you?"

"Of course. I'd put my best people there to wait for him, maybe myself."

"And Dumbledore should have done less?"

Harry hesitated, then shook his head. "I don't understand."

"Whether or not Dumbledore believed in prophecy, Riddle did, and fervently." She paused only long enough to ensure that Neville was following her words equally raptly. "He enjoyed the idea that he was a great enough wizard to have things foretold about himself, to have a grand destiny. So when Sybill gave the prophecy and we knew that Snape had overheard it, it was considered an unprecedented opportunity by the entire inner circle of the Order."

"And that would have been?" Harry was clearly fighting to hold his professionality over the urge to beg for much more.

"Myself, Minerva, Alastor, Kingsley, Elphias, Daedalus, Amelia, and Septimus. It was obvious it could either apply most easily to Lily or Alice's child, and that it would be an enormous advantage to know which he would choose. More still if we could ensure that choice was to our own best interests."

"Why not just protect both of them?"

She gave a curt shake of her head, fluttering her fingers over the idea clearly discussed and cast aside before either of the two wizards had even been born. "Riddle would never have stopped looking, and our opportunity to know his next move would have been lost."

The flush had faded to a sick pallor, and Harry couldn't entirely keep the pain from his voice. "So my whole family was just written off as bait_?" _

"It wasn't at all that simple."

"Then what _was _it?" Harry demanded.

"I don't know," Gran replied bluntly and without a trace of shame. "We were privy to the nature of the prophecy, but not the exact wording, nor were we involved in the decisions themselves. You have to understand, Mr. Potter, that anyone knowing anything they didn't need to was a terrible liability in those days."

There was a long pause, then Harry sighed, looking back ruefully to his notes. "And that takes us back to the same six, and the same four dead."

"Unfortunately," she agreed.

"What about…" Harry paused, and Neville wondered why he looked to him as if in apology before returning to his grandmother, but the confusion was short lived as the other wizard went on in crisp professionalism. "I'm sorry to ask this, Mrs. Longbottom, but would you be willing to allow Penesive retrieval to be attempted on Frank and Alice? It appears that is our best option for determining exactly what did happen in the spring of '80."

"What was needed for the trial of their attackers was extremely traumatic for both of them, and the memories were heavily damaged and fragmented." Neville winced under the arctic tone of her reply, wondering how it was that Harry hadn't begun apologizing immediately. "Almost useless. I have no intention of allowing them to be put through that again to satisfy your curiosity."

To his astonishment, Harry not only did not apologize, he argued. "This is more than curiosity, this is a serious investigation, ma'am."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Potter, but I won't even consider it unless it is the absolute last resort, and the issue at hand here _is _your curiosity. Your investigation is regarding who is sending the messages and why, not why you were chosen instead of my grandson to fulfill a prophecy. Dumbledore's reputation is at stake only to you."

This time, it broke through, and Harry pulled back, his hands turning his wand over between them several times before he spoke again, and it was confession rather than argument this time, hushed and uncomfortably vulnerable. "I trusted him."

"I, on the other hand, never unconditionally trusted anyone, and that is why I am still here," Gran retorted unsympathetically. "Did he ever explicitly tell you that he did _not _have a hand in your selection, or merely that Riddle made the literal choice?"

"He…." Harry trailed off, but they all knew the answer even as he did so.

"I thought not," she nodded, satisfied. "He always excelled at semantics."

Neville felt awful as he looked at Harry sitting there, and he half-wished he could have told Gran to go gently on him, that he really was an extraordinary man, capable and brilliant, but that they were jabbing directly at his Achilles Heel with this matter. Except he knew what the response would be, and that it wouldn't be changed by any tales of sleepless nights in Gryffindor tower listening to Harry and Ron's anguished whispers over Dumbledore's latest pronunciation of Harry's dark destiny. _The only excuse an Achilles Heel gives you is a reason for wearing iron sandals. _

His thoughts were interrupted as she snapped her fingers, the sound startling until they both realized that she had summoned Mimsy to clear the tea dishes. _"_Do you have any further questions for me, Mr. Potter? I wish to speak to Neville in private."

To his credit, Harry collected himself admirably and at once, standing with a smooth, polite bow as he gathered his things. "Not right now, but thank you, Mrs. Longbottom. May I contact you later if there are more?"

"Certainly…" She lifted a cautionary finger to him. "But not before five in the morning nor after nine at night unless it is extremely urgent."

"Of course. Thank you again." Harry bowed one more time, stepping away from the table to give himself room to Apparate cleanly. "Neville, I'm heading straight back to the office, if you want to talk more."

"Sure. I'll be there in a bit."

There was a pause as Harry departed, then Gran turned to him, motioning at the now-empty chair across from her. "Sit down, Neville. You've been standing there as if this isn't still your own house."

He smiled, taking the seat with a fond look to Mimsy as he noticed that she had left a single cup of tea, already fixed to his liking. "Sorry, Gran."

"How are Hannah and the children?"

"It's a little mad, but they're great." Neville took a sip of the tea, unable to resist answering eagerly even though he knew that catching up on her great-grandchildren wasn't why she had asked him to stay. "Ernie's really starting to get the hang of walking, and that's making the twins kind of mental now that he can follow them around more and get into their things, so there's been an upswing in the tantrums, but that's all just normal, you know?" He stopped, wondering whether he should tell her that Hannah was pregnant again, then quickly deciding against it. "I've got some new pictures I was going to owl you, but I left them at home since I wasn't planning to visit today."

"I'm glad you came, and I look forward to seeing the little ones again soon…they're beautiful babies, Neville, and you're a lucky man to have them, and Hannah as well. Don't lose sight of that." Her smile was genuine as she reached across the table to pat his hand, but her manner soon became serious, and he knew the pleasantries were over. "What did you think of that?"

He frowned uncertainly. "Which bit do you mean?"

"You have a great deal more self-control than Mr. Potter, which is admirable, but I'm still your grandmother." Her eyes narrowed, her chin raising slightly. "I've known you your entire life, and I can tell when something's upsetting you. You tell me which bit I mean."

Neville sighed, marveling at how well she could still read him when even Hannah often said his true feelings could be impossible to see from the outside. "I know you wouldn't have said anything to Harry, but…do you have any guesses, Gran?"

"Regarding?"

"Why he would have trusted the Potters more than Mum and Dad?"

She was silent a long time, and he had begun to regret asking, wondering if there was some awful truth about his parents that she was about to divulge, but when she finally answered, it was nothing he could have expected. " When you assigned your three Lieutenants for the battle, were their positions based on trust?"

"No." He shook his head, not bothering to ask why she wanted to know. "Seamus went on pure courage, Terry where he would have to think fast and work variables and move people like chess pieces, and Ernie where I could trust him to hold to the last, and where I could physically use his strength." Even as he answered, her reason became clear, and he was warmed to see the quiet pride reflected in the back of her eyes as she saw it dawn on him. "So…then what I should have asked is what did the Potters have that my parents didn't that made them the best choice for that decision?"

"You understand that I can only guess, don't you?" Gran cautioned.

"Of course," Neville agreed quickly. "But…would you?"

"If I were to guess, I would say that James and Lily had the most valuable thing that could ensure Riddle would make the choice wanted of him, yet think it was his own; they had a weak friend." She let the assessment hang between them for several seconds, then her tone chilled to a warning that sent a shiver up Neville's spine. "Perhaps, with all that is going on right now, and with the position you will be assuming soon, it would be a good time for you to see that you do not have the same asset."

"In Harry?"

"In anyone."

OOO

The lights in the office were dim, the chair behind the parchment-piled desk empty, and it took Neville several seconds after the disorientation had faded to finally spot Harry. The other wizard was standing at the magical window, his head bowed, hands pressed flat against the glass, and though his shoulders were slumped, it was impossible to tell what he was feeling. He made no move to acknowledge Neville's arrival, and his voice was utterly flat, his eyes hidden even in reflection by the white glare of spring sunlight off his glasses. "It's funny, sometimes, how you can hear something, even have it matter to you, but it can still take a dozen years to _get it_."

Neville frowned, crossing the office to lay a cautious hand on the green-robed back. "Harry?"

"When we got back from the Department of Mysteries, Dumbledore apologized to me; he said he'd made some mistakes because he hadn't been prepared to come to see me as a person, a boy rather than just a tool to defeat Riddle." His tone was still empty, not even lost, the revelation delivered as rote as a shopping list. "It was a big deal then that he admitted to being fallible, but I completely missed the part that explains everything."

"That you had been a tool up to then, not a real wizard?" Neville confirmed gently.

"I wasn't raised, Neville, I was _crafted_." Now Harry did turn, and the green eyes almost seemed to glow with a fervor that took him by surprise, a tumultuous blend of horror and awe that swirled like a summer storm. "Sweet Merlin, think about that! To take a child, and to make them from birth into what you'll need of them in fifteen, twenty years…we're both fathers now, can you imagine?"

He didn't know what kind of response Harry wanted, and he spread his hands, aware that he was trodding very near his friend's most vulnerable wounds. "I guess you could say that Mr. Bagman did that with Fritz, or even what parents do with kids that are prodigies, but…."

Harry shook his head harshly, making a sharp, dismissive noise in the back of his throat. "It's not the same."

His first instinct was to argue, to automatically assure Harry as they all had, as they always had, that Dumbledore had meant only the best, but there was something indefinably different about things now that held him back, and he was surprised to hear the blunt agreement from his own lips. "No, it's not. They're not meant to suffer."

"That's kind of a detail, isn't it?" Harry said sarcastically, but the flare of anger was brief, and what replaced it was the cool deliberation of the Auror on a case as he began to pace the office, robes swirling out behind him at each brisk turn.

Neville could see the pieces falling together, the wheels turning swiftly in the other man's mind, and he held up a hand in warning, knowing just how prone Harry could be at times to jumping to conclusions when he got like this. "But just because he chose your family instead of mine, that doesn't mean he knew everything that was going to happen."

"He knew my parents were going to die." It was a statement of fact as simple and almost callous as if it belonged to someone else's life, and it was stranger than Neville had ever expected to see Harry talking about his own past with such detachment that he had no idea if he should even be worried. "He knew I wasn't, that I'd be scarred, and that I could be turned into a vengeance machine that could kill Riddle in the end."

Now he did step into Harry's path, stopping him with a shake of his head. "That seems a little far-fetched. No offense, but I think you're projecting on hindsight here."

"I'm being a fucking Auror, Neville. Putting things together is what I do for a living." Harry snapped, stepping around him to resume his pacing with a wave of his hand that Neville recognized as meaning '_don't interrupt me again'_.

"What he told my parents, or what happened between 22nd March and 31 October of the next year, I don't have a clue, but think about it. Riddle comes to the house. My father would have hidden my mother and I under the cloak…but Dumbledore had taken that. So it had to be a confrontation. Wand or no wand, that was moot, now that I've seen Riddle fight, and now that I'm a parent, it was a foregone conclusion that they'd both lay down their lives for me." He paused, looking to Neville with a ruefully self-aware smile crooking one side of his mouth. "I always thought that was something astonishing, but it isn't, really."

"I'd do it for mine," Neville agreed quietly. "So would Hannah."

"In an instant." The smile vanished, and Harry returned to pacing, drawing his wand to tap the old, scarred holly against the palm of his hand in staccato rhythm with his thoughts. "So now we have their protection on me, and when he goes to kill me, Riddle is either destroyed right then and there, or at least really badly hurt, since a ricocheted Killing Curse is a wild card. I'm marked, orphaned, and that's where it's obvious why it had to be me."

Neville raised an eyebrow, unable to quite hide his skepticism at the bold pronouncement. "Because I look better with scars on my cheeks?"

Harry frowned, confused for a moment, then Neville touched his forehead in silent explanation, and he laughed. "Well, there's that."

Thankfully, the moment of levity seemed to have broken the urge to pace – he was beginning to get dizzy just watching – and Harry perched himself on the corner of the large desk, still fidgeting with his wand, though the faint air of mania was gone, replaced by something more quietly pensive. "But it's your grandmother, I think. Now that I've really…that's what snapped it all together for me." He chuckled softly. "I swear, Neville, it was like getting hit with a Stunner right in the face."

"She can have that effect on people," Neville smiled. "She's never rude, but, well…."

"She takes a jinx from no one."

"Exactly."

"And that's why it was me."

He almost protested again that it didn't make sense, but there was something in Harry's penetrating stare that made him hesitate, and as if watching the silver swirls of a Penesive clarify themselves, the revelation slowly broke over him, and he heard himself gasp. Oh, but it did make such horrible sense, didn't it? "Because if it had been me," he whispered as if waiting – hoping – to be corrected, "Gran would never have let anyone else have custody, and she'd never have let Dumbledore manipulate me, either as a child _or _when I was older."

Harry nodded, and his smile was so faint that it ached across the edge of not a smile at all as Neville went on, scarcely able to stop himself now that he had realized it, and understanding fully what had propelled Harry so furiously. "I mean, it wound up that she raised me anyway, but it's funny, I know you wouldn't think it from some of how I acted when I was younger, but I always had a really strong sense of myself…hell, that was the problem, really. Everything about me was my own responsibility, and if I was eleven years old and not measuring up to a twenty-five year-old war hero, that was _my _problem. I know the DA didn't help that, but I'm not calling it – _or _my Gran – any kind of excuse for anything. I just have a little more perspective on what I can expect in doing my best now."

"Neville, you're an enigma." The way Harry said it, pointing at him with the handle of his wand, it seemed both compliment and accusation, argument and agreement, and he rather had the urge to argue that the same word could certainly be applied to Harry himself right now. "The most selfless but completely self-contained person I've ever met, you're completely aware of how much power you have, but you don't love _or _hate yourself." He spun the thin spindle of wood so quickly it blurred around his fingers, and the sparkle in his eyes was almost playful. "Dumbledore would have torn his beard out trying to maneuver you, because you're this perfect paradox of the Stiff-Upper-Lip Queen and Country First British hero."

"I wouldn't go that far," Neville balked uncomfortably.

"And my point is made." He was glad when Harry dismissed the argument of him as some archetypical figure with a shrug. "Anyway, he might have been able to use you as a weapon, but it wouldn't be one he could aim or choose when and how to fire."

"And you were."

"You went to your Gran, I went to the Dursleys." Harry made a face as if the memories were physically bitter on his tongue. "Dysfunctional, magic-hating Muggle family desperate above all else to appear normal. There was nothing ten years of that could have done to me _other _than turning out a boy who was completely a blank slate to the magical world, needing everything – even his own identity – told to him –"

"—and desperate to be loved, to be accepted, ready for anyone to tell him he was worth anything for any reason, and ready to unconditionally follow anyone who was simply kind to him and offered any form of parental figure," Neville finished, the whimsical recollections of Harry's early wonder and delight at the commonplace magic of their world shaded over the darker memory of the lost and exhausted youth he had encountered in the Hogshead years later.

"He had to fight nothing. I was putty in his hands."

"Ready to be the perfect weapon…." He shook his head, understanding completely the mixture of horror and amazement he had seen earlier. "Whatever circumstances ten or fifteen years later said that needed to be. If you'd had to go hunting Riddle himself with a knife in your hand like Seamus, he could have shaped you that way, or if you'd had to study like the most dedicated Ravenclaw to master some obscure ancient banishing spell, or _anything_. You had motive – not just your parents, but the pain of being hated and rejected all your life – and you were nothing _but _opportunity. It's…."

"Sick. Genius. Unforgivable. Masterful. Amoral. Perfect." Harry set his wand on the desk, spreading his hands in helpless wonder. "It's the most horribly brilliant solution to a problem I don't think we can ever properly understand, and when you think of how many people were at stake, the line of right and wrong is so thin that it falls apart and just becomes completely both."

There was nothing really to say, but Neville joined him on the edge of the desk, hoping Harry could understand that his sympathy was entirely real. "Harry, I'm so sorry."

"No."

"I know it's not…."

"_No_, Neville! That's just the thing!" Having Seamus as a friend had, he thought, inured him to dealing with a mercurial and passionate personality, but he was still taken aback by the vehemence of Harry's rejection. "_Sorry_ is the difference between us! You disliked yourself, but you never felt _sorry_ for yourself, and I did, and everyone else felt sorry for me, so I was completely willing to be martyred and everyone else was willing to gather around and help out. I was _pathetic_ –"

"Stop. Right now." Neville raised a hand to cut him off, shaking his head firmly. "That's too far."

"Inciting of pathos in others." The way he clarified it made Neville think unexpectedly of Hermione, and he almost laughed, inappropriate as he knew it would be, at the realization that she was unquestionably the one who had taught Harry that distinction. "A vital characteristic of his little tool, but Neville, I saw it in your eyes while your Gran was hexing me down over still begging to be Dumbledore's clay twelve years after he's dead…you still feel sorry for me. And so does Ron, so does Hermione, so does my _wife_, even, because I still feel sorry for myself, and I'm still waiting for Dumbledore to make it better."

He nodded slowly, then licked his lips, aware now that he was present for something that would be a turning point in Harry's life, just as surely as Ginny had been there for his own so many years ago in Gryffindor tower, and it wasn't really a surprise when he heard himself echo her long-ago question. "So what are you going to do about it?"

"I'm dropping this investigation."

"_What?!"_

"Tony will be in charge of it entirely from now on, and I'm sending my messages, however many more there are, directly to him unopened," Harry said matter-of-factly, then hesitated, looking at Neville as if suddenly unsure of how things stood between them. "I can't give you orders any more, but I'd ask you to do the same."

"Of course I will." He hoped his smile proved their friendship still intact. "But, Harry…."

"I was his tool, I did what he wanted. Riddle is dead." Harry took a deep breath, taking off his glasses and cleaning the lenses – which Neville only now noticed were tear-spotted – on a handful of his robes. When he replaced them, however, his voice was strong, his chin raised defiantly. "The rest of my life is _my _life, and it can't be if I'm still obsessing over what he'd want of me next."

Neville reached out, squeezing Harry's shoulder firmly in support. "That's incredibly brave of you."

"No, it's not. It's being human, and it's what I should have done on third May ten years ago." Another deep breath, and Harry stood. Whether it was something in his eyes or his posture or nothing tangible at all, he seemed taller, broader, older somehow. "I'm taking the rest of the day off, and I'm going to go home to Ginny and we're going to try and start sorting out who in Merlin's name Harry Potter is, rather than the fucking Chosen One."

"If there's anything I can do, you let me know?" Neville offered. "Even just take James and Albus for the evening?"

"Thanks," Harry smiled to let him know it was appreciated, even as he waved the gesture away. "But I think you've already done more than I could have asked."

"By being the other half of the puzzle?"

"By having _that_ Grandmother." Harry grinned, and it was a look Neville had seen only very rarely; the bright, easy grin of a Quidditch victory over Slytherin. "I should send her flowers."

Neville laughed, shaking his head. "She has more of those than she knows what to do with, I'm afraid."

"With you?" Harry considered it a moment, then laughed as well when Neville cleared his throat and reached into one pocket, displaying the shears that he still carried from when he had been interrupted at work. "You're probably right. Chocolates, then."

"As long as they aren't the kind your brother-in-law makes, but I'd suggest tea." His eyes still teased, but his tone was sincere. "There's a really fine brand from Ceylon, _Taprobania_, that she loves but she's never willing to spend the Galleons on it."

"She'll be up to her wand in it now," Harry declared.

"She'll thank you, I'm sure." He paused, thinking briefly before he added, "Harry? Send a note, too."

Harry gave him a quizzical look. "What should I say other than thank you?"

"Tell Gran that you've decided to move on, and tell her why," Neville said seriously. "'_The most valuable thing you can ever give anyone is their own two feet to stand on.' _It's something she said a lot when I was growing up, and it's the thing she always liked the least about Dumbledore."

Although he had often counted himself lucky not to have been in the other man's shoes throughout his life, never had he felt so for quite the same reasons, nor quite as deeply as he did now as Harry's smile tightened, and a flicker of longing passed through his eyes clearer than Neville believed he would have wanted to be seen. "Well, whatever choice _he_ made, she's brought us both there now."

OOO

"I'm sorry, Professor, I don't know what I did wrong!" No one Neville had ever met, himself and all of the Weasley family included, flushed like Teddy Lupin, and it was all he could do to remind himself that even Assistant Professors should not laugh at first-year students. Even if they had turned the quite literal scarlet of a ripe tomato from collar to hairline.

He offered his gentlest, most disarming smile, patting the boy gently on the arm as he waved his wand, vanishing the shriveled remains of the hapless seedling. "It happens sometimes. Maybe there was a draft, or maybe it was just a poor seed. I've seen your work, you didn't do anything to kill it."

Teddy sucked in a deep breath, his color slowly beginning to fade back down again, but his eyes were still solemnly vulnerable as he pulled his hand from where it had been fisted in his pocket, his voice an embarrassed whisper. "I even had a green thumb."

This time, he wasn't able to prevent the laughter entirely, though he did manage to keep it down to a brief snort of a chuckle, instantly muffled behind his hand. It wasn't merely the child's thumb, it was a good portion of his palm as well. "Oh, Teddy, that's just an expression!"

"I know," Teddy protested a little defensively, shaking his hand. The green vanished as if he had thrown off a coat of paint, and although several of the students were staring, he didn't seem to care. Being a Metamorphmagi was something he took in stride. A dead seedling, not so much, and he bit his lip as he looked mournfully at the now-empty pot. "But I thought it might be luck."

"Maybe it is," Neville suggested, pointing across the row to a particularly lush specimen among a nearby array of flats with an encouraging smile. "Your Billywig is doing wonderfully."

"Yeah, but –" Teddy shrugged, then startled, and Neville's shoulders tensed as he looked up, following the boy's line of sight and expecting to see another raven bearing a scroll on its leg.

Instead, however, it was just the silvery, transparent figure of a teenage boy dressed in a battered Hogwarts uniform shirt over bare feet and pajama trousers, grinning brightly despite the colorless swelling of one eye and the bloodied hole charred through his breast pocket. "Hey, Commander?"

Neville sighed, seeing the twinkle in the ghost's eyes that said even after ten years, the ability to appear out of thin air and startle people hadn't quite gotten old, and his voice was both fondly tolerant and sharpened with disapproval. "Yes, Colin?"

The silver cheeks deepened briefly, and he knew the rebuke had gotten through. Colin's manner became immediately serious, with all the surprising maturity he had become capable of in his brief life as he relayed his message. "Your wife's waiting for you in Professor McGonagall's office. Sprout's coming over from Greenhouse Three to take the rest of this class, she's dismissed the NEWT class for now."

"What's going on?" he asked, trying to keep his tone casual for the sake of the students around him, despite the sudden wave of fear that had gripped him.

"I don't know." Colin rolled his eyes, shrugging. "The Headmistress still seems to think I'm a sixteen year-old student."

"In fairness –" Neville started to point out, but Colin cut him off with a withering glare, arms crossed firmly over his chest.

"Well, you'd think House Ghost would come with a _little _respect. I did free up Nick to cross when I decided to stick around, you know."

Despite the worry that still beat his heart almost painfully against his chest, Neville smiled. "Maybe when you're at least half her age. Tell them I'll be right there."

"Okay." Colin tossed off a parade-perfect salute, then vanished, and for an instant, it seemed bizarrely as if he had Apparated until he realized that the sound had been the greenhouse door opening. That it was already Professor Sprout only increased the mounting fear of what this news must be, and the carefully, emotionlessly professional look on her face did not help either. She must have had to all but bodily throw the students out of her class to be here this quickly.

"Professor Longbottom –"

He nodded, pulling the class notes from his pocket and flicking his wand to send them across the greenhouse towards her, even as he hurried for the nearer exit at the back. "I know. Thanks, Pomona. I –"

She caught them neatly, shaking her gray head with a smile that was tight and far, far too understanding. "Don't worry about it, Neville. I just hope everyone's all right."

"Thank you!" It was tossed back over his shoulder as the door closed behind him, and he didn't even know if she had heard him, but nor did he particularly care. He was running now, sprinting openly across the grounds and hating that even teachers couldn't just Apparate at Hogwarts.

Something had happened. Something big enough that Hannah had come for him at work, and come in person rather than sending a message by owl or even Patronus. That could only mean bad – no, _terrible _– news. _Has she miscarried? _No, not that. Even that, it was early enough that even if she _had _been in shape enough to travel, she'd have waited to tell him. The same if one of the children was sick, or if one of their friends had been hurt, so….

_Let the Cauldron have burned down, let one of our friends have been killed. But please, oh, please, not my babies. _

For a wizard not yet thirty years old, his memory already held a glut of imagery when it came to the horrible fates that could be inflicted on the human body, and by the time he breathlessly gasped the password to the gargoyle at the entrance to the Headmistress' office, his mind had tormented him with every vividly hideous possibility that could have befallen Peggy, Trevor, or little Ernie by accident or intent.

There was no pretense of ceremony or politeness, and he didn't even bother to knock before barging into the circular room. Hannah had been sitting at one of the chairs in front of McGonagall's desk, but she stood immediately, and it was strange to feel the cold separation of the Commander, the Auror, the Knight that seized him, stopping him in his tracks and shuttering his heart like an icy cuirass against whatever blow was to come.

He was still breathing like bellows, but he had stopped shaking, and he knew that despite the flush of exertion he could still feel heating his face, there would be no look of panic, and what panic he still felt was happening somewhere far away. Instead, his eyes scanned over his wife, and that far-off hysteria both eased and heightened to see that there was no blood in evidence, no wounds nor wand-scorches, but that her eyes were reddened, her cheeks tear-streaked as she stood to hurry towards him. "Neville, I didn't want to bother you at work, but –"

"The kids!" It was an order, a demand for information more than a question, and when she winced, the distant terror reached a height so fervent it cracked across the guard to bleed into his words. "Oh, Merlin, Hannah, did something –"

She shook her head quickly, clasping his hands tightly in hers. "No, no, love, the kids are fine! It's…" Her words choked off, and when she looked up again, fresh tears clung to her eyelashes. "Neville, I'm so sorry."

The relief that their children were all right made him almost dizzy, and he reached out, brushing her cheek softly, wondering now if he'd been foolishly selfish in his assumptions. Perhaps it was her father? John Abbott's health had never really recovered from his months in Azkaban, after all. "What happened?"

"Your Gran, Neville. Mimsy found her this morning. She…she died last night."

TO BE CONTINUED


	4. Fas Est Et Ab Hoste Doceri

He had expected that it would look different. Neville was no stranger to death, but both through his experiences on the battlefield and with the Aurors, he had come to expect that the Reaper would leave his mark, whether or not it shone green in the sky above. Death came with torn grass and wand-scorched walls, shattered windows and strewn belongings, blood tattooed across walls and upended furniture, a smell that hung in the air like venom, dusky-thick and cloying sweet.

Without even thinking about it, he had been prepared to see Willlow Creek ravaged and violated, but he had not been at all prepared that it would look perfectly normal. Robins trilled brightly in the blossom-heavy trees, the hedges were still so tidy that they could have been squared with a compass, and the windows gleamed without a speck of dust, a faint wisp of smoke casting the scent of the kitchen woodfire over the spring flowers and neatly mown grass. It was home, nothing worse, and at any minute, it looked as though the door would open and his grandmother would be standing there, berating him for having blindly accepted something as wholly ridiculous as the idea she was dead.

Neville hesitated at the edge of the walk, feeling as if someone had cast an Impedimenta that physically held him back, and he almost turned back, ready to dismiss it all until he felt Hannah's touch on his arm. He startled, blinking at her as if he couldn't quite fit the woman who shared his life as a man into this unchanged world of his boyhood, but she was smiling at him in a sad sort of understanding. "We don't have to do this now, Neville. You can take some time --"

He shook his head, forcing back the sense of unreality with a determined stride onto the cobblestone path. As if he truly had crossed a barrier, the steadiness was there again, and he pulled in a deep, even breath of air that no longer smelled or tasted of anything at all. "No. I'm okay, I really am. She's gone, and we need to deal with what's next."

"That's what's worrying me, love," Hannah pressed. "She was like a mother to you. When my mother died, I certainly wasn't thinking about what needed to happen next."

Her concern was so genuine that he stopped on the front stoop, turning to cup her face in his palm before he knocked. She took his wrist, pulling back to kiss the tips of his fingers and lace her hand in his, but he shook his head, wordlessly but kindly refusing the offered support. "When your mother died, Hannah, you were still a girl. I'm not a boy any more, but I became a Commander even before I became a man."

"I think," she protested gently, "that as much as she was proud of you being a soldier, she would understand if you were just her grandson right now."

Neville sighed, trying to put to words something that he himself didn't want to understand. "It's not something I intended to learn, or even something I really can control, but at this point, I can just…shut off. And there _are_ decisions to be made."

She was quiet for almost a minute, her green eyes searching his face for something he knew it was better not to ask. At last she nodded, and although it wasn't the same sort of shield that fell over her compassion, it was her own version of it. He had first seen it properly in a lantern-lit barn, and it was here again now as she drew her shoulders back and released his hand. "Sue and Seamus have the kids for now; they've sent their condolences and they'll keep them as long as we need. Peggy and Trev don't know yet, but as long as they get to play with the lambs, they're happy."

"That's good." Neville rapped the knocker three times, then took a step back. "Has anyone dealt with Mimsy?"

"Harry's with her. He's taken this case himself."

The news took him aback, his eyes widening as he turned to her, wondering if she might have misunderstood the attentions of a friend for something more official. "I thought you said she just died?"

"She wasn't that old, Neville…" There was a flicker in her eyes and a softness to her tone that said she still wanted to soothe what he couldn't let bleed, but it was less than a heartbeat before it was his anchor at his side again. "There weren't any signs of a struggle, but Harry doesn't want to take chances."

"I –" Neville began, but then the door opened, and they both winced. "Oh, dear."

The wails had been muffled by the privacy charms on the house, but there was no mistaking them now, nor the rapid thudding of flesh against some kind of firm surface, and Neville broke into an instant sprint, taking the stairs two at a time and not even looking to see if Hannah followed. He couldn't even remember the last time he had been in Gran's bedroom, but that scarcely registered as he saw the open door, saw Harry standing at the foot of the empty bed, the elf on the floor at his feet in an extremely loud ball of abject misery.

One would not think it possible to retain any shred of dignity while beating one's head against the carpet or weeping quite that messily, yet Mimsy was managing it. Her grief was clear and profound, yet not at all hysterical, her rhythm against the floor steady and deliberate, as if when one was in such sensible despair, this was simply the only proper thing to do. "_Mistress is dead! _Oh, poor Mimsy, bad Mimsy, _bad _Mimsy! Let Mistress die!"

"Mim –" Harry's voice sounded as if this were not the first time he had uselessly repeated the name, but he stopped mid-word, looking up as Neville caught himself on the doorframe to keep from barreling into the room.

"Mimsy, _no!" _ She stopped at once, leaving herself suspended an inch from the carpet as if genuflecting to the dresser, and Neville surprised himself at the stern authority that came out of his mouth towards the elf who had raised him almost as much as his grandparents. "I am Master now, and you will not punish yourself! You will answer Harry Potter's questions."

Very slowly, Mimsy straightened herself, re-arranging her doily primly as she fixed him with a look that said explicitly that he was _way _out of line, but that she might deign forgive it this once given that Master Neville was likely distressed. Harry, however, was nothing but grateful as he ran a hand through his hair with a sigh of relief. "Thanks, Neville." His smile faded almost at once. "I'm so sorry about –"

Neville waved the sympathy away, crossing past him to the empty bed and skimming his hand over the edge of the spell that had sealed the immediate area. At his touch, shining red letters appeared in mid-air, and although he had set them himself often enough, it still twisted something awful and final in the pit of his stomach. _Investigation in Progress: Area sealed for evidence on authority of the Auror Department: Ministry of Magic. _

He stared at the words in silence for several seconds, at the bed beyond that was so unbelievably unmade at almost noon, Gran's spectacles still on the nightstand next to the little case where she always put her wand. That, he knew, would have been taken for examination as well, and it was oddly reassuring to see the marks of policework here. It helped break that surreal feeling that things were still right, and he didn't look up, still holding his hand on the edge of the spell to keep the label visible. "What happened, Harry? Why are the Aurors involved?"

"It's entirely –" He heard the beginning of the platitudes they were trained to offer a grieving family, but before he could say anything, Harry cut himself off, and when he began again, there was a directness that Neville was grateful he hadn't needed to argue for. "First off, I want to tell you that there are no immediate signs of foul play. No struggle, no defensive spells in the wand, no forced entry. Mimsy just went to wake her this morning, and she seems to have died in her sleep. But you _are _an ex-Auror, mate, and so was she, so that means enemies, and that there's no such thing as a natural death until we say there is. I've taken this case myself."

"That's really decent of you."

"You're my friend…and in case you've forgotten, you did me kind of a favor a few years ago with a homework club and a bloody big snake, so I don't think it would be very decent of me _not _to."" Neville felt Harry's firm hand on his shoulder, and he turned to take the other man's arm in a quick, returned squeeze. It was true enough that there was a level of professional courtesy there, but the Head of Department himself merely to double-check an old witch who had died in bed was above and beyond, and they both knew it.

The awkwardness of unspoken gratitude was thankfully broken as Hannah stepped cautiously into the bedroom, a heavily laden basket of clothing in her hands. "I was following you, love, but I heard what sounded like an alarm downstairs, so I thought…" She shook her head wryly. "Just this. The mangle was finished with it, and I took the liberty of a drying charm since I was already there and it only took an instant. I hope I didn't miss anything important?"

Mimsy's already-large eyes became immense with horror, and Neville winced, bracing himself for the explosion. He wasn't entirely sure where it would come from – there were several possible fronts, from someone interfering in her work to New Mistress doing chores at all – but he was able to silently count it down to the precise instant of the first howl. "Oh, that is Mistress' _laundry_! This is MOST _TERRIBLE_!"

She crossed the room so quickly that she seemed to have used magic, snatching the basket from Hannah's hands and staring at it for a few tremble-lipped moments before flinging herself down into the newly-washed robes headfirst. The basket Hannah had chosen was tall, and it imbalanced Mimsy, upending her, and Neville supposed that it wasn't technically a violation of his orders if the way the wicker was rocking made it fairly certain she was bashing her head into the clothes. "Mistress is dead! Mistress is dead and now New Mistress is already rooting around in her things! Oh, poor Mistress! So kind; not a word even to Mimsy when Master Neville married the common little pub trollop, but now Mimsy must _serve her!_ Oh, poor Mimsy! Poor, _bad, bad, BAD _Mimsy! She was NOT VIGILANT!"

Neville shot a horrified look at his wife, an apology on the tip of his tongue, and for a split second, he thought she must be furious. Then he realized that although her face was crimson and she had a hand clamped tightly to her mouth, it was entirely to stifle laughter. Eye contact seemed to make it a lot worse, and it seemed to be contagious, because it was all he could do to keep anything vaguely like a straight face as he flicked his wand, levitating Mimsy out of the basket as he looked pleadingly towards Harry for rescue. "You had questions, right?"

Harry nodded quickly, taking a deep breath, and Neville had to admire his professional composure. He _almost _managed to sound as if this were all quite routine. "Mimsy, did Mistress have any visitors yesterday after Master Neville and I left?"

Once again, the elf's capacity to recover her dignity was astonishing, even as she had to delicately turn one ear right-side out again. "Mistress only had two. The Vile Woman came, and Mrs. Weasley came, but the Vile Woman was expected."

Hannah's eyebrows raised. "If I'm Pub Trollop, is Vile Woman an ex-girlfriend I should know about?"

"Rita Skeeter. Mimsy doesn't like her," Neville explained, realizing after the fact that the latter was probably self-evident.

"Why was the Vile Woman expected, Mimsy?" Harry asked.

"Because the Vile Woman is writing a nastiness about ten years after the bad night." Mimsy explained, taking each article one by one out of the basket and running her fingers over it, making no attempt to hide that she was re-cleaning and re-folding. "She wanted to talk to Master Neville, but Mistress said if she wanted to talk to a Longbottom, she could talk to Mistress and get her ear full."

"What did they talk about?"

"Mistress did most of the talking, Harry Potter."

She had begun to put away those garments she had fixed to her satisfaction, and Harry had to duck a flying dressing gown on its way to the wardrobe, throwing Neville a sidelong glance as he did so. "I imagine she did."

"She said Master Neville had been a good boy, and a brave boy, and a very excellent soldier who Mistress was very proud of, and that most terrible things would happen to the Vile Woman if she wrote anything bad about Master Longbottom." Stockings missed Hannah by less than an inch.

"That sounds about right…" Harry made a few notes, nodding to himself. "And Rita _has_ been nosing around for an anniversary spread…I remember a few days ago Ron told her off, and I've been expecting an owl myself." The quill stopped, and he looked up again. "How long did they talk, Mimsy?"

"A little less than an hour, Harry Potter. Mistress said to bring no tea for the Vile Woman."

"And you said Mrs. Weasley came as well?"

"Yes, Master Longbottom. She was not expected, and it was very late, but Mistress said that she could come."

"Which one?"

The last robe hovered uncertainly in mid-air as Mimsy frowned up at her interrogator, unwillingly giving Hannah time to step well out of the way rather than needing to dodge again. "Mimsy does not understand."

"Which Mrs. Weasley?" Harry clarified. "There are five."

"Mrs. Hermione Weasley, Harry Potter." She hadn't even looked back, but Mimsy's aim was uncanny, and the robe changed course to precisely clip Hannah across the face with one sleeve on its – somewhat circuitous – trip to the wardrobe.

Neville knew that it was only the privilege of friendship that allowed him to see the flicker of a frown across Harry's face. "Ron said she'd gone to the office last night."

"Sounds like she changed her mind," Neville said with careful neutrality. "What did they talk about, Mimsy?"

"Mimsy does not know." She was trying to take the basket now, but for some reason, it seemed stuck to the floor, and as she heaved and strained at it in increasingly futile frustration, Neville couldn't help but notice his wife's perfectly innocent smile and the wand held ever so casually in one hand.

"Mistress – oooh! -- closed her bedroom – nasty basket must move! -- doors and there –ummph! -- was magic. Mimsy – bad basket belongs in -- could hear nothing – _laundry! –_ and was told to stay very – urgh! – far away and not snoop. _THERE!" _The basket burst into flames and vanished, and Mimsy fluttered her fingers discretely over the ashes, cleaning them away with a superior, victorious smile. "Of course, Mimsy did as she was told."

Neville shook his head minutely at Hannah over Mimsy's now rather sweaty head. _That was not nice, _he mouthed.

_Neither is Pub Trollop. _

"Mimsy, when Mrs. Weasley left, how did Mistress seem?"

"Quite well, Harry Potter. She had her potions and her brandy, and she went to bed. It was very late, so Mimsy thought she would let Mistress have a lie-in today." Tears welled up in the vast hazel-gold eyes, and Hannah was entirely forgotten as she dropped her face into her hands, her plump shoulders shaking fiercely as she attempted to fight the urge to punish. "Mimsy did not know Mistress was dead! _Bad Mimsy! Oh, BAD Mimsy!"_

Neville knelt, uncertain of how one was supposed to console the being whose tears were as foreign a concept as those of his grandmother, but knowing he had to do something. "It's not your fault."

Harry cleared his throat quietly, catching Neville's attention. "Brandy and potions, Neville?"

"Gran swore by a tot of brandy every night for as long as I can remember," he explained. "But that's the only time I think she ever touched alcohol. Wouldn't even drink champagne at weddings…but then, she didn't eat or drink anything outside the house if she could help it."

"Moody's school indeed." Another note. "The potions?"

"She wore her hair so you couldn't see it, but she took a nasty curse to the side of her head in the battle. Never quite healed properly, so she took something to keep it from getting infected. They're probably down in the kitchen, but I'll seal them as evidence and send them to the Department for you – and the brandy, too, as well as the glasses – so you can have them tested."

"And no one else came? No owls, no Floo messages, no Patronuses?"

"Nothing, Harry Potter. But Mimsy was a failure." She wiped her face on the edge of her doily, sniffing loudly. "She was not vigilant; she was tired, so very, very tired, and she went straight to her wardrobe after Mistress was asleep."

"And what did you eat, Mimsy?"

"Mimsy only ate what Mistress ate; roast chicken and potatoes and mushy peas and a bit of dowdy." She paused, making a face. "Except for the most offensive toffee, but that is Mistress' orders."

Harry smiled, catching Neville's eye as he stood. "Hermione's house-elf gifts…but I think I'll leave out that particular name for them when I'm talking to her." He closed the notepad, and the quill affixed itself automatically to the side as he tucked it into the pocket of his robes. "Would you mind if I took her back to the Ministry to finish, Neville? It's always so hard for the house-elves when we question them on the scene."

Neville followed Harry's eye to the silent and wholly unpleasant exchange occurring between Mimsy and Hannah, and nodded at once. "Sure thing. Mimsy, go with Harry Potter. You will answer all of his questions, you will not punish yourself, and you will be very good until he is finished, and then you will go to new Mistress, and you will help her with whatever she needs. Do you understand me?"

Mimsy gasped, looking as horrified as if he had presented her with clothes. "Mimsy is _not_ a pub elf!"

"Mimsy is _Neville's _elf," Harry said coolly before Hannah could comment, "and we will sort out if she's a pub elf later."

It was a battle, but obedience won out, and Mimsy grimaced painfully. "Yes, Harry Potter."

Harry took a minute to offer last condolences and promises that he would get things handled as quickly as possible, then headed downstairs to the Floo, the elf following at his heels as bleakly as if on her way to the gallows, leaving Hannah and Neville alone in the bedroom.

Once they were gone, Hannah sighed, shaking her head in an odd combination of sympathy and distaste that turned quickly to a lopsided smile. "Oh, don't worry, Neville; I'm not going to make her work in the _Cauldron_, for Merlin's sake. She's right, she's such a well-bred house-elf, it really would be beneath her."

Neville smiled back, but it faded almost at once, and he felt very tired himself as he rubbed at his forehead. He still felt nothing in particular over Gran's still almost-unreal loss, but a headache was beginning to present itself very distinctly in a way he hadn't dealt with in years. "We might need to anyway. I don't just want to sell her with Willow Creek."

"Neville!" Hannah gasped. "We can't sell it!"

"We can't afford to keep up an estate like this, even if it isn't exactly a manor," he pointed out evenly, gesturing out the window to the sprawling gardens below. "We're going to have to go through things, sort out what we…." The magnitude of the task hit him like a physical blow, and he sagged down onto the long stool at the foot of the bed, closing his eyes as his head fell into his hands. "But oh, Merlin, where are we going to find _time?"_

Hands were on his shoulders now, strong and callused, yet slim-fingered, pressing expertly against the painful knots that years had taught her just where to find. "I've closed the Cauldron – now don't look at me like that, it's probably saving us money to shut the doors for a few days – it's normal when there's a death in the family. McGonagall already said she was granting you bereavement. She and your Gran were close anyway. We don't have to rush things."

She kissed the back of his neck, sliding her fingers through his hair to start at his temples. "Besides, don't you think she would have thought to have gold set aside for upkeep?"

"But…" He didn't quite know what he was protesting – probably all of it – but he didn't really care if the arguments really made any sense. "This is Gran's house. It's not mine."

"My Latin's not very good, but from the motto over the door, it looks like Willow Creek belongs to the Longbottoms," her fingers worked in slow, deep circles, pushing away the headache despite its best efforts to gain a foothold. "Which means it would have been your father's, and now it's yours."

Neville stiffened, his eyes flying wide. "Fuck."

Hannah stopped, frowning down at him in confusion. "Neville?"

"My father." His eyes closed again with a low groan. "Sweet Merlin, I've inherited my parents, Hannah."

"What exactly does that mean, though?" She asked carefully. "Doesn't St. Mungo's handle their care?"

"Yeah, but I know Gran had to do…stuff." He shrugged heavily. "I'm not sure what, actually. She tried not to fuss me with it, said a mother should care for her child, but a child shouldn't have to care for his parents."

"I'm sure it'll be in her will," Hannah offered confidently. "Just tell me who her Solicitor was, and we'll look over that first, then decide what our next step needs to be."

"Grumbacher, Grimbell, Gurwent, and Groote," Neville recited.

Hannah straightened briskly, patting her hands over her hair to make sure it was still neatly in the twist she wore to work. "Well, then, I'll pick up a copy, inform them of what's happened, grab you some other robes and see if you still have any of what Healer Cadwallader gave you before. That Commander's armor of yours clamps down right on your head, and there's no reason to let it dig in until you're sneaking off to throw up."

He knew he was staring at her, but she waved it off with a knowing smile. "I'm your wife, did you really think I'm that oblivious? It's in your old Transfiguration book in your Hogwarts trunk in the attic, it's marked for severe tension headaches and migraines, and I know perfectly well you weren't abusing it…as a matter of fact, I know you didn't take it half as often as you should have."

"Thank you." It wasn't enough, and he knew it. Neville stood, wrapping her in his arms to kiss her softly, deeply. "I don't know what I've done to deserve you."

Hannah laughed quietly, reaching up between them to tap him teasingly on the nose. "Most of the wizarding world has a list, but I'm still flattered." She kissed him back, then stepped away again, drawing her wand to Apparate. "You can either stay here and take a little time, or go tie up any loose ends you feel you have to at Hogwarts, all right?"

Neville held up a hand, stopping her before she turned. "Wait a moment, the Solicitors won't just –"

"Oh, bugger!" She frowned, thinking, but the resolve was back almost before he had a chance to consider the problem himself. "What if you cast me a writ?"

"That should do it, since you're my wife, too," he agreed, drawing his own wand. "_Veritaproxis. _ But if there are any problems –"

"Of course I will." She gave him one last, quick kiss on the cheek. "We can do this. We've handled a lot worse. Love you."

He smiled back at her, but it faded before the crack of her Apparition had finished echoing in the now-empty house, turning resignedly bittersweet. "We've never had a lot of choice."

It seemed pointless to get started on trying to sort out the house before they had the will, and he didn't want to face what he knew would be so much well-meaning sympathy he simply didn't need yet at Hogwarts, and Neville sighed, sitting back down. It wasn't fair. Always before, when there was something this dark, this gnawingly agonizing beneath the veneer, there had been a thousand things to do, tasks he could layer atop to give it strength. Now, there was nothing, and he could feel it thinning, becoming so brittle that it choked the back of his throat, shuddered dangerously across his shoulders.

He couldn't allow it, not now, because oh, Merlin, it was _Gran_, and whether someone had taken her or it was merely time, she was gone. It was too strange, too _wrong_ to imagine; she had been such a survivor, such an unshakable, inevitable, indomitable force that he had always just assumed she would live to be well over a hundred easily. Or just forever.

No. There was too much under there, enough to take him down for hours he couldn't afford at the least, and that was if he ignored the hideously rumbling possibility that whispered he might just never be the same at all. He took a deep breath, forcing himself to his feet and piling sheer willpower atop the resolve until his hands steadied, his eyes dried again.

The greenhouses. Yes. That would be an excellent place to start. No matter what they decided to do with the property, there were plants there that would need to be either sent to Hogwarts or otherwise sold off. They'd bring in valuable gold, and they'd be no good either to sell to some unsuspecting new owner nor to have around if there were going to be young children here again. He'd start with the Jiltweed -- Seamus' darkly joking birthday present from last year – and once he'd gotten that ready to be moved, he could start cutting back the –

The sound of the knocker was so unexpected that he stopped mid-stride, frowning in bafflement. Had Harry forgotten something? He scanned the room, but there seemed nothing out of place, and his frown deepened suspiciously. If there had been another visitor planned for today, surely Mimsy would have mentioned something? Or had she been too busy with her little feud?

Possibilities mulled themselves over in his mind, varying between the mundane and the blatantly paranoid as he made his way down the stairs, and he paused a moment in the entry, trying to summon up an appropriate mix of welcome and regret. Neville took a deep breath as the knock came again, polite but insistent, then opened the door.

And immediately closed it again.

"That was rude."

There was no real surprise or offense in the slow, sarcastic drawl, and Neville thudded his head slowly against the doorframe, still keeping one hand on the knob, although no attempt was being made to force it by his entirely unwelcome visitor. He knew he sounded petulant even as he spoke, but he couldn't keep the snap from his voice. Of all the things he hadn't expected having to deal with today, this managed to actually top out the list so far, and if there was more to come, he was just going to have to reconsider the appeal of Zanzibar after all. "Go away. I have nothing to say to you."

"Yes, I know," Malfoy responded calmly, "but if I'm willing to forgive sexual assault, verbal assault, and arrest – not to mention having a door slammed in my face without so much as 'hello' – perhaps you'd be willing to be an adult about this? Or would you prefer to keep gambling your family on a game you don't know the rules of?"

Neville felt a moment of sheer incredulity before the anger swept over him, smashing through his self-control with a power that was fueled by not only Malfoy's words, but everything else he had only recently managed to force back. He wrenched the knob almost hard enough to snap it as he flung the door open, and his other hand shot out, not even bothering to reach for his wand. Never before had he used the ancient magic in front of anyone other than Seamus and Hannah, but it came without hesitation, and the thick ivy surrounding the door whipped to life like the tentacles of some grotesque sea creature, wrapping itself tightly around the other wizard's neck in a vicious noose before he had any chance to react.

Malfoy cried out in shock, his grey eyes flying wide, hands clawing uselessly at the woody stems, but there was no trace of sympathy in Neville's voice. "You have exactly ten seconds to start explaining why you didn't just threaten my family, or you're going to be the first person I know of to be decapitated by _Hedera Helix."_

"What?!"

"English Ivy," he explained coldly, a flick of his wrist tightening the vines just further enough to drive the point home without actively strangling him. Yet. "It's the stuff around your neck. Five seconds."

The pale face had turned a pink that bizarrely complimented the deep purple robes Malfoy wore, but there was surprisingly little fear to be seen now that the initial shock had faded, and he spoke evenly if quickly, meeting Neville's eyes directly. "Because if you know nothing else about me, you know my sincere desire for my own survival, and you're rather demonstrating how counterproductive to that it would be to threaten someone with your CV."

The simple conviction of the point made it more believable than if Malfoy had merely blurted his argument in blind panic, and Neville took a deep breath, struggling to regain control of his temper. "Fair enough. So what the hell _did _you mean?"

Malfoy squirmed uncomfortably, the flush deepening as he pulled again at the ivy that still doggedly held him almost on tip-toe. "Remove the _Hydra Helix_ first?"

"_Hedera," _Neville corrected snappishly, but at the same time, he gave another wave of his hand, and the plant released, returning placidly to the walls as though nothing unusual had ever happened.

The moment he was freed, Malfoy dropped to his knees, rubbing at his neck and coughing harshly. Neville felt a flash of pity at the sight of the scratches the rough stems had left, but they vanished quickly enough as the other wizard ran his wand over his throat, slowly rotating his head as if making sure everything was still attached before getting to his feet. His eyes flickered warily to the ivy, then found Neville again, and the smile was unbelievably already on his lips. "So it's true, then…you _can _control plants without a wand."

"Not always. I have to be very focused or very upset." He gestured to the ivy, sending a ripple through the leaves that was rewarded with a distinct flinch. "That was upset."

It had been nine years since he had last seen Draco Malfoy any more than in passing, but it was strange how little had changed. Still the same white-blonde hair, the same pale, pointed features, the same perpetual hint of a sneer. He had filled out a little, the expensive robes hanging on a man's body rather than that of a gangly teenager, but most notable – and worrisome – was the change to his eyes that went beyond the first hints of lines webbed into the pampered complexion at their edges. He remembered them as surprisingly open, with the look of a dangerous, cornered animal, but they were as chill and impenetrable now as chips of smoked glass as the smile grew a fraction wider. "That's why you need me, Longbottom."

His own mouth twisted into an answering smirk. "You are _not _a calming influence."

"I'm a politician," Malfoy gestured fluidly to the elaborate silver W embroidered at his chest. "You're about to enter the Wizengamot, and your CV _there _is less than nothing."

At first, it seemed incredible that Malfoy had gone to such trouble just for childish jibes, but then the pieces slipped together like the shifting ink of a Coding Quill revealing the true words of a parchment, and he snorted dismissively. "I have better people than you to help me if I need it."

"Finch-Fletchley? Shacklebolt?" Malfoy scoffed. "Weasley, maybe?"

"What's wrong with them?" Neville argued. "They're my friends, and I trust them."

"Oh, nothing." Malfoy shrugged casually, but the superior edge to his tone held a different quality than it had when they were children. Then, it had been the simple, spoiled self-obsession of a boy who believed himself the center of the universe, but this was something more knowingly patronizing. "_If_ you want to spout someone's propaganda blindly. See, me, I don't _care _who wins this. I've been on the wrong side once already."

Neville leaned against the doorframe, purposefully blocking the opening completely as he crossed his arms. "And that's why you're suddenly volunteering to help me?" One eyebrow rose sarcastically. "Remorse?"

"I'm _volunteering _nothing," Malfoy retorted. "Consider that your first lesson. No one volunteers in politics. Everyone wants something."

He had never liked word games, never seen the appeal of trying to talk in circles around someone else the way that some of his friends seemed to genuinely enjoy, and whatever patience he had been willing to offer his unwanted visitor was quickly running out. On the Wizengamot, whether he wanted to or not, Neville knew that a degree of dissembling would be expected and necessary, but he wasn't on the Wizengamot yet, and he took a spark of pleasure in being unashamedly blunt now. "So what do you want this time?"

"I want your influence, same as everyone else will." The answering directness caught him off guard, and despite himself, he let Mafloy continue. "Whichever way we go, I'm either going to be part of a very small enclave of people with very long memories and very nasty grudges, or I'm going to be joining a world that's trying to figure out from scratch who the 'good wizards' and 'bad wizards' are, and I have something on my arm that could make either of those very awkward. I want you to take the power you have as a war hero and point to me as the very model of the tragically coerced and fully reformed Death Eater when the time comes."

Neville shook his head, stepping back into the house and reaching for the doorknob again. "Sorry, Malfoy, but I'm not going to clean up your mess. What you did and the choices you made can speak for themselves."

The door had already begun to close, but Malfoy caught it with unexpected strength. "No one speaks for themselves, Longbottom. Who people are is who those in power decide they are." He stepped forward, bringing them uncomfortably close, and although his voice dropped low, each word held a precision as harsh as the crack of a hex. "If Riddle had won, do you think they'd still be your sainted officers? They'd be nothing more than Potter's whore, a raving wisp-wand, a half-illiterate teenage father, a budding psychopath, and a closet-case potions addict. But you won, so they're faithful, quirky, rustic, passionate, and devoted."

He couldn't pretend that the insults had no effect, but he knew they were meant to, and he held the indignation to nothing more than a faint growl beneath his own reply. "And that's supposed to make me trust you?"

"I don't care if you trust me," Malfoy admitted. "That I'm here talking to you should be more than enough to get through even that thick head of yours that I have information, and information is more valuable than Galleons in the Ministry." He released the door, as if knowing that he no longer needed to keep Neville's attention by physical means. "I know that your grandmother is dead, possibly murdered, that you have no idea by whom, and that someone has been sending you and Potter what seems like pages from Dumbledore's diaries, but you have no idea who on that front either."

The litany had been recited as nothing more inflammatory than a weather report, and Neville blinked, too stunned to be angry any more. "How the hell do you know that?"

"Because I know politics." The smirk was there again, laced through with an easy triumph. "I know all the alliances, all the grudges, all the wand behind the back dealings, all the secrets, all the agendas, and most importantly, I know what to do with what I know, and I know when to keep my mouth shut, which is more than you know, considering you just not only confirmed to someone you consider an enemy that you have special abilities that were previously believed just rumor, but what their limitations and weaknesses are."

It was a bitter cut to hear the truth of his own unwitting revelation laid out so barely, and Neville felt like hexing himself for having made such a juvenile mistake, though he had never considered himself a tactician. Still, if Malfoy thought he could use that against him, he was sorely mistaken, and he drew his shoulders back, looking at the other wizard in open disdain. "I don't respond any better to blackmail now than I did ten years ago."

"Yes. I remember very clearly…." Malfoy snorted, wincing theatrically at the memory of their encounter in the Room of Requirement. "It's a wonder I have a son after how well you responded."

"If you're thinking of –"

"That's why I'm _not." _This time, it was Malfoy who took the step back, straightening his robes with an elegantly dismissive shrug._ " _I've told you exactly what I want from you, Longbottom, and what I'll do in return. I will teach you how the Wizengamot works, how to keep yourself from being fresh meat in the dragon's den, and you will owe me a good word when I need it. It's that simple."

"'That simple' is why I'm not buying it. I never sign anything without reading the fine print, and I can't believe there isn't any."

One eyebrow lifted, and Malfoy chuckled dryly. "You might not be hopeless after all."

"I'm touched."

"You want the fine print, all right," Malfoy allowed, then gestured to the door, for the first time sounding a bit annoyed himself. "But I'm not going to just have this discussion on your front stoop."

The thought of allowing his old enemy into his grandmother's house was on its own unacceptable, but more than that, a thin warning of instinct spoke against it, and he held his ground. "Information is more valuable than Galleons. I'm not letting you in."

As if he had never really expected to be admitted, Malfoy gave a tiny, polite nod, then extended his hand down the path towards the front gate. "Then come with me."

"Where?" Neville asked cautiously.

"The Manor." He drew his wand, keeping it low at his side to make it clear that there was no threat in the move. "Second lesson; having tea and mature discussion with people you don't like without making faces at them."

"You want me to come with you to _Malfoy Manor?"_

"No, I'm inviting you to my home for tea and to discuss your future on the Wizengamot." The annoyance was more obvious now, and Neville got the distinct impression that although he had expected argument, he perhaps hadn't anticipated quite the extent of his intended 'student's stubbornness. "Semantics, Longbottom. They matter."

Every surface impulse said to blow him off, to shut the door in his face again, preferably with the most cutting remark he could think of, but whether he liked it or not, he knew it would be foolish. Malfoy had made a few points that rang uncomfortably true, and he found himself thinking back to the brief chance he had been given to return to his Hogwarts days during the second trial of the Quest. It had struck him then how shallow and silly the young Slytherin's adolescent attacks had really been, but both the intent and hurt of them had been real enough at the time, and it would be equally unwise to give them too much or too little sway over his feelings now.

Giving Malfoy control of his yet-unstarted political career was unacceptable, that much was for sure, but there was something to be said for the old axiom about keeping your enemies closer, and he was quite confident that there was nothing actually to fear from visiting the Manor, no matter how distasteful the idea seemed. Whether or not he had accidentally revealed his abilities with plants, that was not the only spell in his wand, and he finally gave a terse nod. "I have to be back before five."

"Yes, this must be a very busy time for you," Malfoy drawled dispassionately.

"Half an hour, no more, and I promise nothing." He didn't go back for his outer robe, not wanting to leave Malfoy unwatched, and he not only threw the latch on the door before he closed it behind him, but sealed it with three different spells, including one that Terry had invented for the DA that he knew no one but his fellow survivors would even recognize.

They Apparated from the bottom of the stairs, and when they reappeared just inside the gate of Malfoy Manor, Neville had already resolved himself not to stare around like a goggle-eyed child, no matter what he saw. It proved harder than he had expected, but not for the reasons he had thought.

The manor house itself was one of the largest he had ever seen, fully four stories of elegant gray stonework and lattice-wrought windows, and there was a marked absence of the Dark Magical symbols or serpents he had assumed would form the decorative motif. The gardens were strictly old-fashioned; rigid hedgerows and geometrically precise flowerbeds lifted directly from a Regency etching, and even the bright spring blossoms seemed subdued, as if even the tulips were terrified of being inappropriate or ostentatious.

There were thousands of hours of work in evidence, painstaking and no doubt the product of a very expensive service, but his keen eye could see that they had been done by template, probably by someone with little or no foreknowledge of the actual lay of the land and soil here. And whoever had pruned those roses needed to have his shears shoved somewhere painful, because cutting them at mid-shaft like that instead of at the node – on a flat cut, not a slant! -- and leaving the wounds open in such a drizzly climate was just begging for rot when the plants clearly weren't that strong to begin with –

"I do want to offer my condolences on your loss." His wandering attention was yanked back to the matter at hand by Malfoy's voice, and he was irked to feel the heat of his cheeks like a child caught sneaking sweets.

He shoved down the embarrassment immediately, letting it replace itself with scorn for the sympathy that had sounded so dangerously real that someone less aware of the speaker might even have believed it. "I notice that you're so sympathetic you're trying to talk me into a political alliance before she's cold."

The gray eyes did not turn from the house ahead, both Malfoy's face and tone remaining stolidly unreadable. "When my father died last summer, I discovered that in your time of weakness, your friends will offer you just enough space for your enemies to move in for the kill."

"And is that what you're doing, then, by your own admittance?" Neville challenged. "Thinking you'll be the first predator to queue up?"

"Precisely, and I want you before someone else bites first and spoils you."

There was no chance to answer, because they had reached the front door, and the moment Malfoy tapped it with his wand and opened it into the broad, marble-floored foyer, all potential conversation was drowned out by a high-pitched, deafening squeal. Neville looked up at the sound just in time to see a small blur hurtle down the staircase, careening into Malfoy's knees with such force that it knocked him back a step against the door.

"FATHER!" The blur was a child, a boy somewhere between two and three years old, and Neville felt a chill run up his spine as the little face turned upwards in glowing-cheeked, open adoration. It was like looking into a Penesive, there was no question that this must have been exactly what Draco had looked like as a toddler, his hair so fair and fine that it seemed a trick of the light more than anything real, his features already delicately hinting at the sharp lines they would grow to carry, his eyes the same nearly silver gray.

Yet if it was eerie to be faced with the idea that the man who he had already known as cynical and spoiled by the age of eleven had ever been just as wide-eyed and innocent as any other, it was nothing compared to how strange it was to see the sudden change in Malfoy's adult self. Gone was the sneer he could have sworn was part of the shape of his mouth, and his laugh was real and gentle as he bent down, peeling his son from his knees and taking the messy kiss to his cheek with no flinch of dignity.

The boy squirmed as if trying to get away from the embrace he had so exuberantly initiated, but it was only for a moment, and then he was holding out something he had pulled from inside his robes. Neville recognized the garish colors of the same self-setting clay his own children never tired of smearing around the flat, but exactly what the lumpish, mottled blob was meant to be escaped him. And apparently Malfoy as well, because although he smiled as he took it, his expression was one of complete bemusement as he looked at the young sculptor. "Well, now, what is this?"

"'Made it!" He beamed, then poked at a portion of the shape that had several little finger-sized holes in it. "Quills go there!"

"And it's magnificent," Malfoy agreed wholeheartedly, then glanced up at Neville, and the look in his eyes was a more explicit threat than he had ever imagined from someone notoriously reluctant to do his own dirty work. "_Isn't it,_ Longbottom?"

"It's…very," Neville smiled kindly at the boy's hopefully expectant look, and the pronouncement seemed satisfactory to both father and son.

Malfoy set the blob carefully on the inlaid floor beside him, then turned back to the toddler with a look of the utmost gravity. "It will have a place of honor on my desk, Scorpius. What do you want me to tell people it's called?"

There were several seconds of consideration as Scorpius frowned, tugging gravely at his ear before finally announcing, "Issa thing."

"A thing it is, then." Malfoy gave the boy one more kiss on the head, then stood, gathering the thing with him as he made a shooing motion with his free hand down the expansive hall. "Now, you run along and tell your mother that we have a guest for tea?"

"Arright." Scorpius nodded happily, then scampered away, his footsteps echoing with the disproportionate loudness of childhood that had nothing to do with the architecture or acoustics of the manor itself.

"Good boy." It was said quietly, so much so that Neville wasn't sure he had been meant to hear it, but then Malfoy turned, and it was as if Scorpius had carried all trace of humanity with him when he had left. The eyes had frozen over again, and his tone seemed more a dare for contradiction than a fathers pride. "He's beautiful, isn't he?"

"Lovely child," Neville said sincerely, then his own voice hardened as he nodded at the object in Malfoy's hand. "And let me guess, my third lesson is to notice you're putting that on your desk so that everyone can see you're a wholesome family man?"

"I'm putting it on my desk because my son made it." Malfoy retorted. "Your third lesson can be about benefit of the doubt, or at least pretending you give it."

Neville sighed, rubbing at his forehead and wondering just when it had begun to pound quite this fiercely. Though he had been willing to give it a try, the idea of continuing this duel was rapidly becoming something that made him nauseous to even think about, and he decided that simple honesty was the best option. "Look, Malfoy, I'm sorry, but I just can't do this. Not now, not today. It's what you already said; I can't make a good decision today, and you're _not _offering this out of the goodness of your heart."

He saw the rebuttal forming on the other man's lips, and cut it off with an upraised hand. "I didn't just arrest you because of the mark on your arm, or because of the nonsense when we were kids," he said with finality. "I arrested you because I genuinely consider you a dangerous person, and I'm not going to just put myself in your hands now when I don't trust you any more than I did ten, fifteen, or seventeen years ago. I don't care if you were forced to become a Death Eater. What matters to me is that the only times I've ever known you to do the _right _thing, it was also because you had no choice."

Malfoy did not object at once, and Neville had already opened the door when the archly aristocratic voice came again from behind him. "Have you ever wondered why I walked?"

"Because you _can _play the game." He stopped, but didn't turn around. "I never argued that."

"Utterson. Finch-Fletchley. Jones. Peakes. Your wife."

Now he did turn, frowning. "What about them?"

"I saved their lives."

The boast was too much. A line had been crossed that Neville hadn't even known existed, and he felt his temper flare again, already closer to the surface than he liked. "Don't you fucking dare –"

"They were already down, already wounded," Malfoy cut in. "I could have killed them all, but I didn't. I Stunned them instead."

Neville's mouth tightened, and although he succeeded in pushing the anger back under its shell, it wasn't easy. "I'm supposed to be grateful just because you couldn't get up the guts to use an AK?"

"I didn't want that entire night," there was a sudden tightness in Malfoy's voice, a haunted flicker of the desperately cornered boy of memory. "It was a nightmare –"

"For the first time, I agree with you, but it was about my _friends_," Neville said harshly. "The Half-Bloods and Muggle-Borns bled just as red as I did."

"I couldn't fight _my _friends!" The sudden, real _feeling _in the outburst silenced any snide comeback, and a bright flush of color spread across the high cheekbones. "My friends, my relatives, even my own _parents_ were behind those masks, Longbottom. And whether or not you can believe it, there's a _difference _between not liking someone or thinking they're wrong and wanting to see them die."

Malfoy took a deep breath, recovering himself, and now it was a fragile pride that raised his chin defiantly. "I did what I could, and your wife is still alive because I Stunned her instead of leaving her on a battlefield after she'd taken two Confundus Curses and a Leg-Locker."

Silence held the hall in the wake of this claim for what seemed like years. At last, Neville shook his head, and there was no anger in his tone now, only something that hovered between regret and rebuke. "You know, I would have helped you and your family if you'd asked instead of trying to blackmail me. And I might have listened to your offer if you hadn't decided to lie now. Goodbye, Malfoy. You care so much about self-preservation? Then don't ever contact me again."

It was almost lost in the closing door, but Malfoy's chuckle and his last, cutting assertion still caught Neville like a parting slap. "I won't need to. You'll contact me."

OOO

By the time Hannah returned to Willow Creek, Neville had already made a great deal of progress on the greenhouses, and the headache had already subsided to where he didn't even need the potion she brought him. Looking over the will and making the first hurried preparations for the funeral was more than enough to keep his mind from wandering back to the disconcerting encounter, and it was almost two in the morning before they finally collapsed into bed, scarcely even bothering to undress.

It was only after the lights were out and he was curled up with her on the soft, comforting edge of sleep that the cold, sneering drawl invaded again, refusing to let him slip away as his hands stroked over Hannah's cool, golden curls. _I saved their lives. _

It was ridiculous, a maneuver, nothing more. Just an attempt to win him over, make him feel like he owed something to the little snake with a claim he could never prove or disprove, but it nagged at him, repeating over and over again until he knew he had little choice. "Hannah?"

She shifted against his chest, her voice a thick, lazy murmur. "Mmmm?"

"What do you remember about the battle? I mean, when you were taken down, when you were Stunned. Do you remember who did it?"

There was a long pause, and he thought at first that she had fallen asleep already, berating himself for having been so silly as to ask, but then she rolled away, pushing herself up on her elbows to look at him. He could barely make out her face in the darkened bedroom, but it was still enough to make out her frown of concern. "Why?"

"Just…" he shrugged, not wanting to admit his own gullibility. "You know, thinking about how close I came to losing you that night. You were down so hard, I thought you were dead when I found you."

She smiled gently, leaning down to kiss his forehead before snuggling back against him. "Don't worry about it, baby. You _didn't _lose me. I'm right here."

He should have left it there, but he couldn't. "Please, Hannah. Humor me. What do you remember?"

"I got myself backed against Hagrid's hut." There was an uncomfortably flat quality to her hushed whisper, and he could feel her shoulders tighten. "It gets pretty fuzzy after that. I was hit, I know…a couple of times, I guess. I know I was on the ground, and when I looked up, there was one of them standing over me, and then everything went red."

"Did you get a look at his face?"

"You're not going to get yourself some mad idea that it was the same person who did something to your Gran, are you, Neville?" She was no longer whispering, and the discomfort had been replaced by outright worry. "It was battle, it was…you know how it was. It was chaos."

"You don't remember anything, then," Neville said dejectedly, letting his head sink heavily into the pillow as he closed his eyes. Sleep would have to just come in its own time, and as tired as he was, it couldn't take that long….

"It was a man," she whispered finally. "No hood, but I couldn't see his face; he was backlit. I guess he was an older wizard, though."

A smile came over his face in the darkness, and he nodded in bitter satisfaction. Liar. Just as he'd thought. "An older wizard." He bent his head to kiss her. "Thank you, love."

"Mmm hmm," she trailed her fingers across his chest, settling again to sleep. "I couldn't see his face, but he had white hair."

He did not sleep after all.

OOO

"I have spoken at more occasions like these than I ever wanted to, but every time, it always strikes me how it can seem that everyone, though united in their grief, is grieving for a different person. The sister, the best friend, the girlfriend, the wife, the mother, the Housemate, the student, the daughter, the soldier, the niece; each facet that makes a single lost life shows us something unique. I knew them one way, but I couldn't tell others what they saw or missed.

"With this extraordinary witch, it is different. I can look at everyone here who ever knew her - even if only by reputation, by what she came to symbolize to so many witches – and tell you exactly what you all mourn.

"You mourn a woman who was always strong, even in times when you would have expected her not just to break, but to shatter. You mourn a woman who was proud of her blood, her people, and her country, but held her head high without looking down on anyone who had not lowered _themselves _by their own actions. You mourn a woman who broke barriers that had always been assumed impossible, not by arguing, but merely exceeding every standard so completely that there was no question she would be anything she chose, and that the Auror Department would be lucky to ever have better. Many would say they never did.

"You mourn a woman who was never unkind, but who knew that kindness was different from coddling or condescending, and who never did either of those. You mourn a woman who was brave and devoted, who never complained, who always spoke the truth, who honored both her friends and her enemies, and who expected the impossible of people only when she had done it herself. That's who she was to each and every one of you, because she did not need to have more than one face to be more than everything to anyone who ever asked of her, and to countless who didn't, or who don't even know her, but who live every day in the freedoms and safety that she helped win them in over sixty years and two wars.

"That was Augusta Longbottom, and I am proud that I can't stand here now and tell you about the 'real' witch, because you all knew her. I had the fortune not just to know her, but to have had her raise me since I was a baby, and her words are the most important things I will ever carry with me, her example the one I only hope to live halfway up to every day of my life. Sometimes, they were profound; '_Magic is a weed that turns the sunlight into a King's next breath. A wizard is just a lesser example of that.' _Sometimes, they were practical; '_When it denies the right to speak one's mind, a society will only fester its wounds and hobble its heroes.' _Sometimes, they could seem harsh, just as she could; '_I love you enough to teach you that the world does not.' _But they were always, always true, and never, ever cruel. They were her words, the same for everyone; from the Minister of Magic to the humblest beggar.

She was never ashamed to be what she was, and I will never be ashamed to have been given the honor of saying that to me, she was one thing different than she was to all of you; she was my grandmother."

Neville took a deep breath, folding the parchment into the pocket of his robes, though he hadn't needed to look at it the entire time he had spoken. He had been afraid that he would forget what he wanted to say, that he might even break down at the podium and just sob in front of all these people instead of saying anything at all. But he hadn't. Maybe it was the feeling that Gran was still watching him, lingering not as Colin had, but just long enough to make sure that he didn't disappoint her at the end, when he would be representing what she had left the world in the grandson who had tried so hard to replace the son she had lost.

He only hoped he hadn't let her down. The applause seemed awkward as he stepped down, but that didn't bother him. Funerals were always like that. No one ever seemed to know quite how they were supposed to respond, trying to keep the invisible line between too much and not enough, trying not to be inappropriate when there was never anything appropriate, only inevitable about death.

Neville slipped past the Minister of Magic, Gawain Robards, as he took his place, but he wasn't listening to the words at all when the Minister began to speak. It didn't matter what he had to say, it wouldn't change anything, and he couldn't afford to take the chance that there would be some observation, some memory, some turn of phrase that would genuinely move him. There would still be the time after the ceremony, the burial itself, even all the clean-up…it was every bit as involved as planning his wedding had been, but that he'd had eight months for, not three days of no sleep possible and no tears allowed.

Hannah's hand slid into his as he sat down, and he returned her thin, exhausted smile with one of his own. _That was beautiful, _she mouthed. _You did well. _

He gave a small shrug that wasn't dismissive as much as resigned. _I just –_ Neville stopped, frowning as he looked past her down the front row of chairs. It took him a moment to realize what was wrong, for his tired mind to process the still-empty chair between Harry and Ron, and the scowl deepened as he leaned in closely enough to whisper into his wife's ear. "Where's Hermione? She still hasn't shown up?"

"I don't know," Hannah whispered back. "Ron said she remembered something at the last minute that she had to do, but she was supposed to be here by now."

"What the hell could be _that _important?"

"She's a solicitor, love." She squeezed his hand gently, her other hand patting the black robes over his arm. "Maybe something critical happened with a case that couldn't wait? When you were with the Aurors…." Her voice trailed off hesitantly, but he understood, and he felt foolish for having been so quick to take offense.

Hannah was right. Hermione would never simply dismiss something like this, but he knew all too personally that the world's shadows didn't obligingly clear themselves for any one person's schedule. They hadn't even been able to take a honeymoon until he was out of the Department, and it was only recently something they could all laugh about that the groom, bride, and best man had simultaneously been called away from the Potters' wedding. The image of Ginny with the sleeves rolled up on her lovely white dress and Harry with a smudge of wand-scorch on his nose when they had returned to announce Alecto Carrow in custody and complete the ceremony was one that he wouldn't soon forget. Hell hath no fury indeed.

Still, as the seemingly endless procession of speakers took the podium, one after another, the worry began to nag at him, no matter how hard he tried to tell himself that by now, Hermione was probably just waiting for a time when her Apparition wouldn't disrupt things. It was a relief when the speeches were over at last, and Ron was already turning to him the moment they stood to begin the procession to the gravesite. "I'm so sorry, Neville. I don't know what –"

"Don't worry about it." His smile came more easily than he had expected. "Things happen."

"Been happening a lot lately." The freckled face glowered darkly. "I can't imagine why she'd just…_Hermione_!"

Neville turned as Ron raised himself up on tip-toe, waving one long arm to signal across the crowd. For a moment, he saw nothing, then he caught sight of Hermione shouldering her way towards him, and his stomach plummeted. Her face was sickly white, her lips pressed together into an almost invisible line, and it didn't look at all as if it were merely embarrassment or remorse for having missed the service, nor did she seem to take any notice of the glares she was being shot or the exclamations from the witches and wizards she unceremoniously hustled out of her path.

"We have a problem." The words were out of her mouth the moment she reached their little cluster, no preamble or apology, her dark eyes flicking past them rapidly as if she were afraid of being overheard, and she licked her lips before continuing, dropping to a whisper and leaning in. "I just came from London."

"Why were you in London?" Harry asked, matching her caution at once with his own taut whisper.

"I wanted to make it clear to certain people that they were not welcomeif they had any ideas about _bugging_ us at the funeral." There was a clear double-meaning there, and he saw Ron and Harry exchange a distasteful look, but Neville himself was at a loss for what it meant, and if he read their expressions correctly, Hannah and Ginny were no more clear on things.

"Good idea," Ron nodded tersely . "But what took you two hours about it? Have to check every windowsill in the city? Couldn't use _Accio Sneaky Bitch?_"

Harry coughed, only half-successful in covering a snort of laughter, but Hermione was not amused. "Oh, I found her, all right. She was in her own flat, and from the _Prophet _clipping in her handbag, I don't think I was unfair in my guess, either."

"What were you doing in someone's handbag, Hermione?" Ginny slipped in between the two men, one hand on Harry's arm and the other resting lightly on the curve of her stomach, but there was nothing motherly in the snap of her eyes. "Cast the spell already – what's going on?"

"Rita Skeeter is dead," Hermione answered bluntly. "Killing Curse, from what I can tell, and it's your grandmother all over again, Neville…no forced entry, no sign of a struggle. Just stone dead in her own bedroom; curlers in her hair and only half her lipstick on." There was a nasty hint of satisfaction in that detail, but Neville was too stunned to care.

"Did –" he began, but Harry cut him off, and he was angrier than Neville had seen him towards either of his best friends since they had been teenagers.

"Why don't I already know this? Why didn't you call the Aurors?!"

"Because with almost the entire Department here, I thought that the killer might have been lazy enough to assume he had some leeway, and breaking up a funeral that merited WWN coverage would lose that advantage completely. It's not as if I wasn't one myself for a while!" Hermione snapped back.

Harry did not look appeased, and he crossed his arms, dropping his head to stare fixedly at her over the rims of his glasses. "You know what you've done, don't you?"

"What?" Her posture matched his, and she tossed back her shoulder-length curls defiantly.

"You're the last person at the scene for both of them." It was Ron who answered, and there was a hollow kind of horror in his face and voice. "Damn it, Hermione, if they weren't connected beyond an interview before, they are now, and _you're _that connection."

For an instant, the realization flashed fear through her eyes, and her lips parted, but they set again just as quickly, and Neville could almost believe he had seen nothing at all as she spun to face him. "You don't honestly believe I killed your grandmother, do you, Neville?"

"No!" There was no hesitation in his answer, and he shook his head fiercely, even as he was still trying to process the news. "That's not…I mean, we're…absolutely _no!" _

"No one thinks you killed Neville's Gran, Hermione," Hannah reached out, laying one hand on the other witch's bunched shoulder. "And I think Rita Skeeter probably has more enemies than Riddle did on his best days."

"Ron just means it doesn't _look_ good, and he's right," Harry added darkly, reaching for his wand, and Ginny gasped.

"You're not going to arrest her, Harry?!"

"No, I'm not," he answered calmly. "I'm going to make this conversation have never happened for any of us – and the last two hours for Hermione – and she will simply have been detained at work. Rita's sorry quill can just be found by someone else. I don't personally shed a lot of tears if she starts to smell a little first."

A look that he couldn't begin to unravel came over Ron's face as he looked at his best friend. "That could get you in all kinds of trouble, mate."

"You know perfectly well we've been expecting Rita to get someone angry enough for this for a long time, and that if Hermione had wanted to get rid of her any time in the last thirteen years without a trace of evidence, all she'd have needed was a bedroom slipper," Harry pointed out. "I am not about to allow her last big scoop to be getting the only witch I trust as much as my own wife arrested for murder."

Neville wasn't even sure if it was his place to interrupt, but he stepped forward nonetheless…and nearly lost his balance, feeling bizarrely as if he were no longer taking a stride, but simply _there_. It was almost like Apparation, a vague, dizzy disorientation, and he shook his head, trying to clear it. "You doing all right, mate?"

He looked up to see Ron standing next to him, one hand hovering over his shoulder uncertainly. The rows of chairs were completely empty when he looked around, and the feeling of disorientation increased. "I'm…uh…confused," he admitted.

"Don't worry about it," Ron chuckled quietly, offering him a conspiratorial wink. "I think I might have dropped off a moment too during that last one. No one even noticed, I bet, and if they did, probably just thought you were thinking or something." His ginger head nodded towards the back of the hall where Neville could just see Harry, Ginny, and Hermione leaving through the double doors, Hannah lagging behind them with a concerned glance over her shoulder towards the two wizards who were the only people remaining. "Might want to let your wife know you're okay, though."

"Yeah," he agreed, still tired but starting to feel more himself already as he straightened his robes, already starting down the center aisle. "I guess I really must have been more –"

The caw stopped him, and he didn't need to look up, his eyes meeting Hannah's across the hall as they both winced. They both knew what it was, and from the echoing caw and cries of alarm distantly through the open door, the raven that soared down to land at his feet was no more alone than before.

This time, he didn't untie the scroll at all, wanting to leave it as intact as possible for Tony – and half-hoping it might vanish with its unwanted messenger – but it remained even after the bird had gone, and he sighed, casting a Barrier Charm over his hand as he bent to pick it up. When he straightened, Hannah was already there. "Another page of the diaries?"

"Another page of the mystery," he corrected her, then sighed, tucking it into the same pocket that still held his unused notes. "But thankfully, it's Tony's problem. We need to hurry."

Neville took Hannah's hand, but as they followed the procession towards the graveyard, Neville couldn't help but feel as if the parchment was growing heavier with each step. Hermione held up at work so that she missed the whole service. No one bothering to wake him when he dozed off at his own Gran's funeral in front of half the wizarding world. More damned ravens with more damned pages. A hundred pairs of eyes staring at him, waiting for him to say some last platitude and signal the gravedigger to lower the casket and seal the grave. Maybe strew a few petals or something. Smile at people, thank them for coming.

No.

His feet simply refused to carry him one more inch, and he stopped, beyond caring any more if anyone – if everyone – was staring. Neville's eyes were only for Hannah as she raised his hand to her mouth, skimming a kiss across the back of his knuckles, and when she let it fall, her fingers were pressing something into his palm. He opened his hand, turning it over quizzically, and his heart caught in his chest when he saw the delicately winged and paired seeds. "Lilacs." It was hard to swallow. "Gran's favorite."

"For her grave," Hannah whispered. "I know they're off-season, but maybe you can still plant them as a gesture?"

He couldn't answer at first, but at last he nodded, his fingers closing tightly over the seeds as his head lifted, his back straightening as he drew a deep, clear breath. "Gran never settled for gestures. I'll make them bloom."

TO BE CONTINUED


	5. Ubi Spiritus Est Cantus Est

The _Cauldron _was still officially closed, but the knock on the door was not unexpected, coming at half eight with such punctuality that Neville couldn't help but smile as he answered it. He had assumed Justin would be in wizarding attire, maybe even the purple robes of the Wizengamot, but he wore a crisply creased dark blue tunic with a pair of wings at the breast – clearly some kind of military uniform – the hat doffed immediately as he extended his other hand. "I cannot tell you how grateful I am for your hospitality this evening. I assure you, I wouldn't usually have ever even dreamed of imposing on you the day after –"

"It's all right, Justin," Neville laughed, waving off the apology as Justin stepped inside, followed by another gentleman he didn't recognize. This second man was clad in an identical uniform, although the bright array of ribbons beneath the wings was somewhat different. He was tall and trim, with neatly cropped blonde hair and an athletic tan, and something about him seemed familiar in a way Neville couldn't quite put his finger on, though he clearly knew Justin well and had much of the same quiet dignity of bearing, and he wondered perhaps if the other man had been a year ahead in Hufflepuff, or simply a Muggle friend he had once seen at King's Cross.

By the look on Justin's face and the way he was gathering himself, it was clear that he was not about to be so easily dissuaded that he was not being an unforgivable nuisance, and Neville waved him back before he could begin. He had already endured the spasms of etiquette once after the funeral with the request for the dinner invitation to be re-instated. "Really. It's no imposition at all. We're happy to have you and your friend."

For a moment, it seemed as if he were going to keep apologizing anyway, then he smiled, giving a small, self-aware bow. "Thank you nonetheless. But I'm being impossibly rude. I must introduce you." He turned, indicating the second man, who nodded in acknowledgement. "Neville, this is my friend and comrade, Henry Monmouth. Henry, may I introduce Neville Longbottom, hero of the Battle of Hogwarts and leader of Dumbledore's Army, and of course, his lovely wife, Hannah."

Neville shook his head, feeling his face heat beneath the lofty introduction as he shook Monmouth's hand. "You'll have to excuse Justin. He has so many things attached to his name that he feels like he has to find things to tack onto everyone else to make it fair. I'm just Neville, really."

"A pleasure, nonetheless," Monmouth said. His diction was every bit as aristocratically cultured as Justin's, and Neville found himself rather uncomfortably aware of his own broad Yorkshire Tyke. "And you may call me Harry or even Hal if you wish, since we're all being informal here."

"I'll stick with Henry, if you don't mind," Neville smiled. "One of my best friends is named Harry, and we're probably going to wind up talking about him, so it could get confusing."

"May I take your coats, gentlemen?" The tunics were apparently not considered outerwear, and both men declined, but Hannah still collected their hats with the grace of a professional hostess, waving her wand smoothly to hang them on the long line of pegs inside the door as she lead them down the hall. "Dinner is already on the table, but it's charmed to stay warm, so there's time for a drink first, if you'd like." They had reached the main dining area, and she flicked her wand at the bar, vanishing a portion of the polished wood to allow herself access. "Obviously, as a pub, we have quite a full selection, and I've been told I mix an excellent Dragon's Claw."

Monmouth tipped her a small bow as he shook his head, but Neville saw the blue-gray eyes scan over the collection of bottles with what seemed equal parts regret and an almost childlike fascination. "Beautiful _and _talented, you're a lucky man, Neville. But I'm afraid I'll have to decline. I don't have a great deal of time, and I can't indulge tonight."

Hannah's reply was cut off by another knock, and she held up a finger to the other two before they could say anything. "Excuse me a moment." She was gone less than a minute before Neville heard the door open again. "Hermione! So glad you could make it. Justin brought a friend, too, so –"

The two witches had barely appeared in the doorway when Hermione stopped dead in her tracks, her jaw dropping open in unconcealed shock. Her face had gone first stark pale, then flushed deeply, her eyes flicking hugely from Monmouth to Justin and back again, and her voice was a strangled whisper. "Oh, dear God. You're –"

"A 'Muggle', right?" Monmouth interrupted, exchanging a quick, strangely guilty look with Justin. Neville caught his breath at the admission, wondering what he had gotten himself into and suddenly understanding Hermione's horror as she took the offered handshake with limp, obvious dismay. "Yes, I know, and I'm sorry I startled you, but it's quite all right –" Another flicker of significant looks passed between the three of them. "I already know about the wizarding world…it, well, it rather came up of necessity several years ago during your unpleasantness with lord Voldemort. Henry Monmouth, pleasure to meet you."

Hermione's mouth took a long time to form around the name. "Henry…Monmouth?"

"Yes."

There was an excruciatingly long pause, another round of silent argument – Justin's eyes seemed to be begging her not to make a scene – but at last she took a deep breath, dipping only the second curtsy Neville had ever seen from her."Hermione Weasley. And please forgive me, it was…ah…very _unexpected _to have you here, Sir_."_

Justin's relief was palpable as they all took their seats at the only table that remained in the spacious dining room. "Henry has been wanting to see more of the wizarding world ever since I had need to inform him of it during the war. He's somewhat like myself in that privilege of birth has him quite involved politically, and if we are going to achieve a successful unity of our societies, he is extraordinarily well-placed to assist us. It's simply been a matter of his schedule not allowing it, but he was given his wings last month, and he won't be heading out to the BRNC until next month, so we do have a window at last."

Hannah raised one eyebrow in polite curiosity, though he noticed she had tucked her wand away discreetly, using her hands instead to lift the covers of the serving dishes. "You're also a Peer, then, Henry?"

"Yes, in a manner of speaking." Monmouth nodded. "I had the good fortune to meet Justin at Eton, and he has actually mentioned you quite often, ma'am. You were friends at his previous school…." He hesitated uncertainly. "Hogwarts, was it?"

"Very good friends, yes." She had already filled a plate with beef Wellington, brandied carrots, chestnut green beans, and mashed potatoes, but she scowled now at the gravy boat at the far end of the table, not wanting to reach across her guests. "Would, um –?"

"Feel free to use magic, Hannah," Justin offered gently. "That's the entire reason that Henry wanted to visit tonight; to have the chance to see an actual magical household, rather than just myself."

Hannah smiled gratefully, shifting the plate in her hand to draw the wand from her waistband and summon the gravy to hover lightly above the potatoes. "Well, then, would you like some gravy?"

"Thank you." Monmouth couldn't keep the wonder from his expression as it poured itself and returned to the table, his eyes still on Hannah's wand as he took the plate. "It comes perfectly easily to you, doesn't it? _Incredible_."

"We do have to learn," she shrugged, already dishing out the next plate. "But once you have the knack of it, yes. It's like tying your shoes or writing a letter."

"And yet –" he continued eagerly, "Excuse me if I'm being rude, but it seems as if you're living at almost a pre-industrial level. We're dining by candlelight, and I don't see any sign of technology at all. Don't you find that difficult?"

"Technology isn't really necessary for us, and most of the wizarding world doesn't have the framework to feel like they're missing things the way we would," Justin explained. "The Longbottoms are both what are known as Purebloods; wizards and witches only for many generations. I don't think they've ever even seen a movie, either of them."

"No, actually," Neville agreed. "Though I did have the opportunity to see a telly when I was in Belfast with my old job. It was…." He hesitated, trying to find a polite way to describe the chaotic, flashing melee that his Muggle hosts had seemed to love so much. "Interesting. Everything moved so fast it was hard to follow what I was seeing."

"No doubt our world moves fast," Monmouth said gravely. "Frighteningly so, sometimes."

"It's that speed that makes unification so imperative, Neville, and it's something that I don't think the wizarding world really grasps." Justin leaned forward slightly, his gray eyes shining with a fervency that was a little disconcerting. "We think we have the luxury of time, because our idea of something happening all at once was Riddle rising over the course of three years. The Muggles are already on the verge of discovering our world, and if the technology is on the cusp now, it'll be in every child's hand a year from now."

"That sounds very alarmist, Justin," Hannah demurred carefully. "It's not as if that tiny little wireless you have is going to suddenly make Hogwarts plottable after a thousand years."

"With all due respect, ma'am, I'm with the military, as you've probably noted, and…well…." Monmouth cleared his throat, and Neville realized he was watching his own words every bit as closely as they were, just as wary of revealing too much. He remembered that Shacklebolt had once mentioned that there had been a contingency plan for recruiting help from the Muggle armed forces if Riddle hadn't been able to be stopped, and he wondered if that was what he had referred to earlier as his introduction to their secret. "We've already found you. We just don't know what you are yet."

Neville frowned, setting down the fork that had been halfway to his mouth. "You mean; you know there have been incidents you can't explain."

"He means that we've identified several areas in the UK – and we're sitting in one of them – where we know there is something being hidden." Justin clarified firmly. "Thermal and electromagnetic imaging, satellite surveillance – cameras in space that could tell your hair color – global positioning 'dark holes'…we know there's something here, and the current assumption is that it's espionage or terrorist activity. My personal fear, as well as Henry's, is that if we do not facilitate some kind of peaceful revelation, then it is a matter of months at most before a way is found to breach your security."

"Can't you call off the investigation if you're both in the Muggle government?"

Justin shook his head, and it was only in knowing him for so many years that Neville saw his shoulders slump fractionally beneath the square lines of the tunic, as if the inability bore a physical weight. "There are a lot more checks and balances in that system, Neville. One person can't carry nearly the same power."

"Which is another reason that isolating further would be terrible for us as a society," Hermione insisted. "Because we're already operating so close to that old axiom of absolute power corrupting absolutely."

Hannah's voice remained polite, but her green eyes flashed a warning at the other witch. "Magic is anything but absolute power, Hermione."

"But we _act _like it is, and we have corrupted like it is," she argued quickly, turning to Neville as she gestured with a bit of roll. "The very fact that Fudge's stubbornness was enough to blockade our entire Ministry should have been a tremendous warning, but it's not, and the things you and Hannah take for granted as acceptable when it comes to personal freedoms would be seen as downright fascist by most of the Muggle world."

"That's just not true," Hannah retorted crisply. "There's nothing fascist about the Ministry; _you _don't have perspective. You make your living arguing against them, haven't you considered that might bias you?"

"Did you ever think it might not be normal that you had planned a suicide pact of a hundred children to _hope _to make people _care _at the height of Riddle's regime?" Hannah's hiss of shock at the audacity of Hermione's rebuttal was completely ignored. " The fact of the matter is that Riddle only took the power of the Ministry over the average magical citizen barely a single step further, and the wizarding world was already inured to laws being the whims of the current leadership. Taboos, Obliviation, the Dementor's Kiss, Crack-Wand trials, suspension of _habeas corpus_, magical surveillance, warrantless search, seizure, and arrest…these were _already part of life_."

"It's how he was using them that was the problem," Neville stepped in before his wife could offer a comeback, wanting to head off an outright fight, but his own tone was deliberately cool. "If you have a population with magic, of course they have to be controlled more strictly than Muggles. We have greater capacity for harm."

"That's old thinking," Hermione shook her head, then shrugged. "And maybe it was true, once, but these days _Muggles _have the greater capacity for harm, and our society has still adapted to try and preserve personal human rights as much as possible. We're not perfect, but at least there's outrage _without _generational suicide pacts when we fail, and that outrage spurs change. Right now, in the United States, their last President has come dangerously close to just the kind of regime we were talking about, but the people are furious, he's utterly disgraced, and even the candidates from his own party are running on the grounds of being as little like him as possible."

"I've fought _with _Muggles," Neville reminded her. "I'd say a wand and a gun are pretty evenly matched, honestly. It comes down to who moves first, in my experience."

"In that, I'd agree with you," Justin interjected calmly, then held up a finger in caveat. "_But_ when the greatest dark wizard in hundreds of years lashed out, he could tear apart a bridge. Henry or I could press a single button from inside our airplanes and wipe the entire 'anomalous location' in Scotland off the map at a level magic could never protect against. It wasn't a fluke that the Akari Tegatana Academy in Hiroshima was completely obliterated in 1945."

"With all due respect, gentlemen, telling me how much we have to fear from you is not going to encourage me to want to unify," Hannah pointed out. "The reason for the split in the first place was the rampant persecution of people like us. I do not want a pitchfork mob going after my four year-old daughter if she reaches for a sweet and innocently summons it into her hand."

"Those wars weren't about magic," Justin had barely touched his food, even though Neville knew that Hannah had deliberately chosen several of his favorites. The other man's hands were held so stiffly that it was as if he were trying to prevent them from betraying whatever feelings were so carefully shuttered behind the implacable eyes that he had never before realized were so very like Malfoy's, no matter how different the wizards themselves. "It was a power play by the Church whose main competition for influence came from wizards; whether it was the local witch who brewed a potion to clear your baby's rash when the Church wanted you to pay a priest to pray, or whether it was the wizard who advised the Lord rather than the Cardinal."

Neville met Justin's look with one of even skepticism. "Don't try to tell me there are no more power plays in the Muggle government, or that our return wouldn't start one."

"Oh, certainly, but the good old days for that sort of thing are over," Justin said with a wry little chuckle. "You can't get the same kind of pitchfork mob in this society…they're too comfortable. You know yourself that it takes desperation to create revolt."

"Information is the key, I think, as well," Monmouth suggested diplomatically, motioning with his water glass to the room. "Seeing this world, seeing you for people, the way I have had the opportunity to do first with Justin, and then yourselves. Small things, and silly, perhaps, but it's impossible to be afraid of Justin as a wizard when I have seen him spitting out mud and horse dung after polo." His eyes sparkled with a split-second of open mischief. "Or to even care that you pour the wine with your wand when your wife gives you such a look for letting it drip on the tablecloth."

"_As _people, though, we do value things about our culture, even if we're willing to agree it's not perfect." Hannah added pointedly. "I don't really like the implication I seem to be getting, Hermione, that repealing the Statute has to mean assimilating, adopting wholly Muggle values, and putting a telly in my living room."

"Muggle technology doesn't even work around magic, does it?" Neville asked Justin, dodging the larger issue deliberately.

"The old stuff, no." He shifted awkwardly, extracting a small device from the pocket of his trousers and setting it on the table. Neville had seen him with it before, but now that he had a chance to get a proper look, he had to admit it was fascinating. About half the size of a man's hand and less than half an inch thick, it was silver and black, with a square of shining glass and an array of miniscule buttons beneath covered in letters and symbols that seemed almost too small to see. There was a larger, circular button immediately below the glass, and when Justin tapped it, the glass lit up, swirling with color for an instant, then resolving into a grid of tiny drawings.

He started to reach out, wanting to touch it, then hesitated, but Justin only smiled and slid it towards him. "You won't hurt it by being magical, but I'd ask you not cast any spells into it directly or push any of the buttons or icons – pictures on the screen. It's very important to me."

Somehow, he had thought it would be warm, but it was cool and heavier than he had expected when he picked it up gingerly by the edges. He didn't know how to hold it, and he felt reluctant to ask. "This is new Muggle technology, then?"

"It's my Blackberry." Justin laughed at the look that earned him. "It's just the brand name. Keeps my schedule and does a lot of other things, but the important thing is that it doesn't work on the analogue and circuit-driven technology that was so disrupted by biocryptic energy. What drives this is called a CFD, and it's almost indestructible…but that's not the point."

He reached out, taking the object back and turning the glass dark again before returning it to his pocket. "The point is that this model was experimental a year ago, and I bought it for about 32 Galleons at a common Muggle store three months ago as easily as a loaf of bread. It's happening fast, and it's _when, _not _If _it breaks through to this world_. _If you want to keep your lifestyle, that's a factor. It's all back to fear and howmagic is revealed." He spread his hands. "You're not going through my pockets because I'm your guest, but if you had found me hiding in your cupboard, you'd search me to my skin, wouldn't you?"

"The last war _did _really help," Hermione added, looking at Hannah with a smile that seemed halfway between a peace gesture and continued challenge. "It turned Muggle-Born prejudice from something fashionable to something horrifying and distasteful. Even the most biased know it would be social and political suicide to breathe a word about Blood-Status now. So we just need to take advantage of that and –"

She was interrupted by a flash of silver, and all five of them startled back as the Patronus swept down among the dishes in the middle of the table. He didn't recognize the large hermit crab crouching on top of the bowl of potatoes at first, but then it spoke with the harsh Argyle burr of Healer Monroe, and he felt his heart sink. ", you need to come to St. Mungo's right away. Your grandmother was meant to visit your parents this evening, and they have become extremely distressed."

It's message delivered, the crab vanished, but Monmouth was on his feet, staring at the now-innocuous potatoes as he struggled to regain some semblance of composure. "What…what…_what_ on earth was that?!"

Justin stood immediately as well, clearly flustered, his hand fluttering oddly as if he were torn over whether or not putting it on his comrade's shoulder would be a breach of some Muggle etiquette Neville didn't pretend to understand. "I'm sorry, Your Highness, its called –"

"_Your Highness?"_

His head whipped around to stare at Hannah, and Neville had rarely seen the color drain that abruptly from a healthy man's face. "I meant –"

"Don't try to jinx me, Justin." Hannah said icily, setting down her goblet to fold her arms tightly over her chest as she held his eyes relentlessly with hers. "If there's one thing you've _never_ screwed up in the seventeen years I've known you, it's someone's title."

Neville's own legs felt oddly unsteady as he stood, his mouth dry as he stared at Justin's companion, the realization that was slowly dawning on him too impossible to accept. "I knew I'd seen your face before, but I thought it was because you were Justin's friend. That's not it, though, is it?"

"Neville, Hannah, please…this can all be –"

"No, don't." The stranger interrupted Justin's attempted explanation quietly, but absolutely. There was no lifting of a transfiguration, nor fading of Polyjuice, yet there was a change nonetheless. His posture had been good, but now it was impeccable, and there was an indefinable something to the smile, to the tilt of his head that spoke the truth of his identity before his words. "My name is not Henry Monmouth, it's William, and I'm sorry for the deception, but neither of us felt it would be very easy for a Prince to have the sort of frank discussion that is so necessary to these decisions both of our worlds are facing."

Hannah let out a soft moan, covering her face with both hands. "Oh, sweet Merlin…."

"Hannah, I'm so sorry," Justin whispered desperately. "I wasn't lying to you, not really. Everything else – Eton, the RAF, all of it – it's all true."

"You just left out that tiny little detail that your 'friend' happens to be heir to the throne," Hannah said hollowly.

"This is going to have to wait." Neville took a deep breath, forcibly collecting himself as he bowed awkwardly but as politely as possible to the young man he now knew to be his sovereign. "My apologies, Your Majesty, but I buried my grandmother yesterday, my parents are invalids in hospital, and I need to see to them before anything else. If you wish to stay here, I will be back as soon as I can, but Justin is coming with me."

Justin frowned bemusedly. "Neville?"

"To be perfectly blunt, I know that Hannah can take care of herself, and so can Hermione, but I'm not letting you out of my sight for an instant until I have several straight answers to several very serious questions," he said sternly, stepping back away from the table. "Leave your wand. I'll take you side-along."

Obediently, Justin drew the fir wand from his sleeve, laying it on the table, but there was genuine hurt in his eyes. "This is how you treat a friend?"

"This is how I treat someone who just demonstrably tried to pull one over on me at a time when my tolerance for that sort of thing is spectacularly low," Neville retorted unsympathetically, then nodded in brusque satisfaction as Justin joined him. He took the other wizard by the arm, giving one small, final bow to the Prince. "Now if you'll excuse me, Your Majesty, my parents need me, but if it's not going to get me beheaded or anything, I'd really recommend you stay, because my wife makes an extraordinarily good pudding, and I will try to be back quickly."

The moment the corridor of the hospital had solidified around them, Neville released Justin's arm, continuing the turn with his hand already upraised to stop the argument he had already opened his mouth to make. "You're getting ready to say something, and I'm sure it'll be something brilliant, but right now, you are going to shut up and listen to me." His tone was arctic, unyielding, but the potential of hurt feelings didn't matter right now. "My parents aren't just ill, they're very seriously brain-damaged, and there are rules here."

For an instant, it seemed that Justin was going to argue anyway, but then his shoulders sagged, and he nodded, no longer meeting Neville's eyes as he stared guiltily at his feet like a chastised schoolboy rather than one of the most prominent rising stars of two political spheres. "All right."

"They don't understand what's said to them, but they do have a degree of understanding when it comes to tone of voice, facial expressions, and body language," Neville continued sharply. "You will not make any sudden or even vaguely threatening movements. You will not yell, you will not look or sound in any way angry, aggressive, or upsetting. You will stay back, because they don't know you, and if either of them – particularly my mother – wants to touch you, you will let them."

He began to walk down the corridor that lead to his parents' ward, scanning the halls for familiar faces among the Healers and orderlies they passed. "If they hurt you, say something _calmly_ and I'll deal with it, unless it's serious, and then be as gentle as you possibly can. My mother will hum or make funny noises, but as tempting as it is to try and think it's something real, it's not. And on my wand, if you spread around what you see in there, I don't care how long you've been Hannah's best friend, we're over. Clear?"

"Perfectly."

"Good."

They had reached the entrance to the ward now, and there was a man in the blue-trimmed robes of a Senior Healer standing just outside, consulting a roll of parchment. He was short and rather squat-looking, with a broad bald spot amid his salt-and-pepper hair, but his round face and the dark eyes beneath their thick spectacles were kind and intelligent when he looked up at the sound of their approach. Neville took the offered hand, shaking it warmly, but his smile was grim. "Healer Monroe, I got your Patronus."

Monroe let go of the parchment, leaving it to levitate in mid-air as he squeezed Neville's hand in both of his. "I'm so sorry to hear about Augusta, Neville. It was such a shock when I found out; she was an extraordinary –"

The condolences were genuine, he could see, but he pushed them aside, not wanting to take the chance of reminiscence with someone who had known Gran so well for so long. "Is everything all right, Sir?"

Thankfully, Monroe seemed to understand, and his expression settled at once to pure business. "Your grandmother was supposed to visit them this evening. We'd been hoping they wouldn't catch on at least for a few days, but Frank started getting agitated around eight, and by half-past he was screaming, throwing things, and he got very combative with the orderlies, so we've had to sedate him, I'm afraid." He sighed, shaking his head, and although he could see out of the corner of his eye that Justin seemed appalled, Neville took no offense himself. He knew too well how dangerous his father could be both to himself and others when he had a fit like that, and if anything, he was just grateful that they had been able to get a potion into him. Sometimes they had to use a Body-Bind. Those times were very bad afterwards.

He gestured towards the door, steeling himself for the next. "And Mum?"

"She's quite worked up as well," Monroe admitted. "Though we don't really know how much of that is Augusta not coming and how much was Frank's episode."

Neville frowned, not liking the edge of reluctance to Monroe's tone, almost as if he there was something he didn't want to say. "She doesn't get violent, though."

"No…." He hesitated, pressing his lips together, then nodded his head very slightly over Neville's shoulder, and it suddenly made sense.

"Go on," Neville prompted. "You can say it in front of him."

Monroe let out a breath of notable relief, continuing much more readily now and ignoring Justin as completely as if he had Disapparated. "She's just been crying a great deal, curled up again, and we haven't been able to coax her out of the corner. We were hoping you could calm her down."

Not so bad, then. Not the best, but really, not nearly as bad as it could have been. He nodded, already rubbing his hands together briskly to make sure that he didn't touch his mother with cold fingers. "I'll do my best."

"Would you like me to show your friend to the tea room?"

"No, Mr. Finch-Fletchley will be coming with me." He cut off the Healer's protest with a look. "I know it's not best, but he's been told the rules, and it's really unavoidable."

"All right, then," Monroe shrugged, though his warning glare to Justin was anything but casual before he turned back to Neville, reaching up to pat him encouragingly on the shoulder. "Good luck, lad, and again, I'm sorry about Augusta. If there's anything I can do…?"

"Just continue taking such good care of Mum and Dad, Healer. And thank you."

He waited as Monroe walked away down the hall, taking the time to gather himself with several long, slow breaths, his eyes closed. It was almost like trying to summon a Patronus, forcing back the anger and the betrayal, the tension and frustration and confusion that there was already too much of in that room ahead. For all that they were unable to comprehend a single spoken or written word, his parents had a nearly preternatural ability to know when someone was angry, and he waited until he knew his face and eyes held nothing but gentle comfort before he finally put his hand to the knob.

It recognized his touch, turning instantly, and he didn't bother to look to know that Justin would follow him in, his attention already on the two figures at the far end of the ward. His father was in his bed, sleeping soundly beneath the potion's influence, but he could hear sobs breaking across an erratic, disjointed humming, and he felt his heart twist beneath the pasted-on soothing smile.

Alice was barely visible, tucked into the farthest corner of the ward on her knees, arms clasped over her head and her face pressed into the floor, rocking arrhythmicly as the toes of her bare feet clenched and unclenched in time with the fingers in her hair. She was so thin, so fragile and tightly curled that she looked not much bigger than her own young granddaughter, and it was no longer any effort at all to let there be nothing in his manner but the aching desire to just make it better.

He breathed on his hands again, not wanting to have traces of magic in them any more recently than necessary, then knelt carefully beside her, letting his hand rest a few seconds on her back before he began to stroke slow, calming circles over the ridges of spine and ribs. "Okay, Justin, now it's question time, but remember what I said about tone of voice. We're trying to get a very sweet, very scared lady out of a corner here, not frighten her into next week."

The words were harsh, but he had cultivated the dichotomy of this place over years with Gran and the Healers, and the sounds of them were not directed to Justin at all. They were at his mother, murmured into the hair that was still mostly the same brown as his own, though far thinner in the places she pulled. _It's okay, _they said. _I love you, Mum, I'm here, I'll protect you like you protected me. There's nothing to be afraid of. You're safe. You're safe._

He was ready to silence Justin with a look or even a spell if he absolutely had to if the other man couldn't grasp it, but to his surprise, although there was a long pause first, when he did speak from where he still lingered by the doorway, his tone was equally reassuring. "Neville, I don't like leaving His Highness at the pub. I promise I'll answer anything you want me to later, but would you please just –"

"You're going to answer now, and you're going to start with what possessed you to think trying to trick us was a good idea." She hadn't uncurled at all yet, but nor had she pulled away or screamed, and he slowly widened the circles, feeling carefully along the sides of her arms and legs and combing his fingers through her hair to see if she had bruised herself knocking into things as she sometimes did when she was this distraught.

"He didn't want me to tell you."

There didn't seem to be any tender places, so he shifted to sit next to her on the floor as closely as possible, putting one hand at her hip, the other arm reaching across her narrow shoulders as he prepared to move her. "Why not?"

"He wanted to be able to see and hear things for himself, to get a real opinion, and for someone of his station, those are precious difficult to come by, as everyone tends to try and ingratiate themselves by saying what they think he wants to hear, or avoiding touchy matters all together to try and 'be polite.'" There was the squeak of a heel against the floor, and Alice flinched, earning Justin a sharp glare, but he had already winced, lowering himself gingerly to the floor to untie the laces and remove them so that he wouldn't offend a second time.

"I would have treated him the same as anyone else if you'd been honest with me." There was a trick to it, the perfect combination of quick and smooth, but he'd done it a hundred times, and she didn't even uncurl as Neville lifted his mother into his lap, tucking her head against his shoulder and wrapping her not-too-tightly in his arms, his own steady rocking a counterpoint to her staccato shivers. She was still humming, but the sobs were farther between, and some of the dissonant little almost-phrases of tune were beginning to repeat themselves, something he knew was a good sign.

"I know that, of course, but Neville, he _told me_ he wanted it to be incognito, and there's only so far I can argue him."

She was beginning to uncurl a little, her hands still fisted in her hair, but her feet had relaxed, and the tension that made her seem like an iron spring that had rusted together was beginning to flex with his motions. "And I suppose that the reason you brought him in the first place is just because he said he fancied seeing? Like we're some kind of zoo exhibit?"

Justin shook his head carefully, though he had not mastered the ability to keep the dismay from his eyes as he took a slow, measured step towards them on stocking feet. "Not at all like that."

"I'm amazed at you, Justin. Amazed and more than a little disappointed." The other wizard froze in place almost comically, but Neville didn't look up, delicately but firmly unweaving his mother's fingers from her hair. "When we were with the Aurors, I stood up for you more than you realize. You're different, and I know that, and I defended everything from your spit-shined shoes to your perfect bloody RP against people who wanted to call you a poof and a coward without giving you half a chance, and I've seen you have more guts than most of the ones who were doing the name-calling."

Her hands twitched and trembled at the empty air, the humming raising suddenly, frantically in speed and pitch, but he held them steadily, guiding them instead to his shoulders, and in taking hold of his robes instead, it raised her head and began the gradual process of uncurling. "But now you're saying you'd do something you knew was wrong just because someone had a bigger title. That goes against everything I've known about you from the yellow necktie onwards."

"It's not that simple, Neville. He's _Royalty._"

"So are you, I thought." A soft kiss against her forehead, and it was almost funny in a horrible sort of way how much better at this he'd gotten since he had children of his own. Easing a nightmare was always the same, whether the monsters came waking or sleeping. Same tone of voice, same balance in holding and comforting someone so vulnerable with just enough show of your own strength to promise safety without causing any more fear.

"A technicality, and barely that. I'm nobility, certainly, but I'm not even _in _the line of succession, and we're only third cousins."

She was almost all the way uncurled now, no longer sobbing, almost all humming, and his smile widened when she dared pull away from him enough to wipe her nose on his sleeve. He saw that her bare knees were slipping between his legs, coming close to the tiled floor, and he shifted her so that she was cradled more easily and with no chance of unexpected contact with anything cold. "And in your world, that means he gets to dictate your conscience? That's stupid."

"Don't."

Neville allowed himself to look up briefly, wondering if he had missed something as he kept half his attention on the quality of the humming, gauging whether she was ready to move properly yet. "Don't what?" Not quite. Soon, though, and he would need to introduce Justin as more than just another voice first, so that the sight of him wouldn't come after she had already abandoned the safe corner.

He made eye contact deliberately, motioning with his head, and Justin nodded again, very slowly beginning to make his way across the room. "You have no right to pass that kind of judgment on something you have absolutely no framework to understand. You know they're important, you knew it was an honor to be received by Her Majesty, but that's it. You're a citizen of the Crown only by the thinnest definition, and you certainly don't understand what the Monarchy is to a normal Englishman, much less to someone like me."

Keeping his arms around her securely, Neville began to scoot as if to face the corner himself, simultaneously turning her inch by inch so that she would be able to see Justin approaching even as she felt most protected. "Now would be an excellent time to tell me, then. And smile, you're a nice, nice person who likes Alice and wants to be her friend."

"Being an Auror mattered to you because your father and grandmother were Aurors. Two generations. You call yourself a Pureblood and you're proud of six generations. I am Lord Ogilvy of Deskford, and so was my father, my grandfather, my great-grandfather, _his _great-grandfather…_eighteen _generations." Justin stopped again only a few paces away, and Neville motioned for him to sit down so that he wouldn't tower over her. He could see her beginning to peek through the fall of her hair, but to his relief, she seemed more curious than frightened anew, and he realized perhaps the complete unfamiliarity of the Muggle uniform had ironically disarmed any association with People That Hurt.

"Give her a present. Something shiny or brightly colored."

Justin looked over his uniform carefully, biting his lip as he ran his fingers over the polished buttons and bright wings before dipping into his pocket. "My insignia have sharp parts, and I'd have to yank or twist to get a button off, but I think I have some nice bright coins." His smile deepened in triumph, and he indeed withdrew a small handful of assorted Muggle change, holding it out to her on his open palm.

The last of the tension had faded from her body, and although she didn't quite let go, the offer was enticing enough that Alice braved climbing halfway off his lap to reach the gift. Justin didn't flinch when she snatched them away, secreting all but one instantly into her robes. The one that she kept out was relatively large, gleaming copper, and she turned it every which way in the light, squinting at it and rubbing her fingers over the raised design, then abruptly standing up and walking into the middle of the room to hold it directly under the main globe of light.

"And we have approval." Neville couldn't help but chuckle, even as he had to bite back a wince as he got to his feet. The floor wasn't just very cold, it was very hard, and he hadn't had the luxury of choosing his positions with any thought for his own comfort, or for the number of times his body occasionally liked to remind him that he himself had belonged in hospital. He straightened his twisted robes, still keeping an eye on his mother as she continued her increasingly gleeful examination of the coin. "If you have any kind of weapon on you, give it to me now, because you're next."

Justin shook his head, but there was no further chance for explanation before Alice had whirled, hurrying back with her odd, scampering gait to drop to her knees in front of her benefactor. She was grinning broadly, all sign of the previous terror gone as if it had never occurred, and the humming was again faster, though no longer seemed harried as she tapped the coin in turn against each ribbon on his chest. Back and forth across the little row, then to the wings, and then each button in turn.

All the while, her eyes were searching his face, her expression almost hungry, and Neville sighed in resignation as he saw the bemusement that escaped the attempt at bland acceptance. Alice caught it, of course, and the intrigue vanished in a snort of disgust. The coin was tossed down – although she kept the others, whether or not she remembered she still had them – and Neville picked it up, following her. "Go on. Eighteen generations?"

To his credit, Justin picked up immediately where he had left off, though his tone remained as mild and pleasantly friendly as Neville's. "The Fat Friar was alive when my ancestors were awarded their title for service to the Crown, and that doesn't just mean we have money and power like the Malfoys. We _serve_. The blood in my veins has been shed for England on the soil of five continents. That man is my Prince, he will someday be my King, and if he were to ask me to slit my throat for him, I am his, because I belong to England, and by the grace of God, he and his _are _England incarnate and ordained."

"That is possibly the most frightening thing I have ever heard. How can you claim loyalty to the Wizengamot, then?" He stopped at his father's bedside, pulling back the sheet to see for himself if any physical damage had been done.

"Because this is England too." He heard Justin get up, but he didn't bother to look. There was nothing much, just a few bruises, and he'd have to remember to thank Healer Monroe for whatever he'd finally figured out that was working for that rash on his wrists where he rubbed them all the time. "To be nobility is to live split between your duty to your sovereigns and your duty to the people, and as a wizard, I live split thrice. So when my Prince asks me to go against the impress wishes of my friends, I am caught, and I have to decide with myself ever last. Which means I risk losing two dear, dear friendships, but it was risked in hope that it would help ensure that those same friends never had their doors broken down in the night by a squad of tragic misunderstanding."

"You can talk. I never doubted that." Neville tucked the sheet back snugly, leaning down to give his father a kiss on the cheek before leaving him to whatever peace the potion could grant. "Merlin knows, Justin, you've been educated within an inch of your life, and you can talk beautifully. But I just don't know." His father unconscious and safe, his mother now distracted by something in her stash of things under her bed, Neville at last allowed his honest weariness to show on his face, though he still kept his voice under tight control so as not to draw her attention. "I don't know how I feel about any of this. I'm not even sure I know how I feel about Gran yet, and that was nearly a week ago."

"I'm not asking you for anything," Justin spread his hands, palms open and upraised in a show of transparency. "Even forgiveness."

Neville looked away, hating with unexpected intensity that he could have so many reasons to suspect the honesty of someone who should have had so many reasons to be above suspicion. "No one volunteers in politics."

"What?"

"Nothing. I said I'm running out of coping, all right? I don't trust you, I don't trust your Prince, I don't trust your England, I don't trust _my _England, I don't trust _anyone_ right now, except maybe my wife and my kids, and even Peggy lied to me this morning about pinching her brother. You talk to me about serving England…." She had come out from under the bed and was pacing, turning one of the smaller, silver coins over and over in her fingers. "I've stood in Avalon and held the sword of St. George in my hands. I know about serving something greater, but I don't know how that fits to this or anything to anything, and I'm _done_, Justin. I'll be starting with the Wizengamot on the nineteenth. I'll talk to you again before that, I promise, but right now, I'm going to say goodbye and go home to make my apologies to His Majesty."

"His Highness," Justin corrected. "Her Majesty is his grandmother."

Neville's smile was edged in shadow as he crossed to his mother, getting her attention carefully before motioning first to himself and Justin, then the door. "Her Majesty was my grandmother, according to a lot of people."

"It is a separate world indeed."

There was a wry acknowledgement in the statement, but Neville wasn't listening. She must have known he would be going, because there was more than the silver coin that had been pulled from her precious box, and he swallowed hard as he closed his fist around the crumpled paper. "Every time." He pressed the fist to his mouth, then gave his mother one last hug before turning to go.

"She gives me one every time," he explained quietly, showing Justin the sweet wrapper as he tucked it into his pocket. "I've got hundreds of them now."

Justin, however, did not follow, nor did he look. Instead, he was still staring at Alice. "I thought you said it didn't mean anything; her humming?"

"It doesn't," Neville shrugged. "It's just fragments of random melodies; Gran even got the conductor of the International Magical Symphonic Society to listen to a recording, and he couldn't pick out so much as a bar of anything. She doesn't even respond to the song that used to be hers and my Dad's, or to things she sang me as a baby."

But Justin did not seem mollified. If anything, his frown deepened. "I'd swear that was the Stones, though…made bloody odd sense too, if it was."

"Stones?" he asked bemusedly. "Like rocks?"

"The Rolling Stones. They were a Muggle band. Very popular in…well, in their time, honestly."

"How does that make sense?"

"It's the bit she was humming when she gave you the wrapper, or at least, what it sounded like." Alice had returned to her box, already having dismissed them both, but Justin still didn't move. His eyes closed, and it looked as if he was trying very hard to remember something, then to Neville's surprise, he began to sing, the tune the same strange, plaintive one his mother had just hummed, but this time, there were words.

"_Candy and taffy, hope we are both well,  
Please come and see me in the citadel."_

The reaction was as if he had thrown a curse across the room. Alice jumped to her feet with a scream, then both hands clamped to her mouth, her eyes enormous, white-rimmed circles above the narrow fingers. Neville whirled, unable to bite back the furious rebuke. And after he had worked so hard to calm her down! "Justin!"

But he was ignored. His mother had begun to hum again, her dark eyes locked on Justin's gray, and unbelievably, he began to match her humming, putting words to it a second time despite her obvious distress.

"_Oh, who's to blame,  
That girl's just insane,  
Well nothing I do don't seem to work…." _

He trailed off as she broke down into sobs, but when Neville pushed past him to wrap his mother protectively in his arms again, there was no guilt at all on the refined features. He simply looked dumbstruck. "Dear God, Neville, it's music! That's another…same band, even."

Anger had risen so harshly it was threatening to choke him, and he barely managed to at least sound calm. "Stop winding her up, you moron."

Justin shook his head, and the hope, the sense of epiphany in his eyes was actually enough to break through the initial flare of rage, and Neville sighed, remembering all too well the easy lie of what the other man had clearly convinced himself of. "You're just hearing things and trying to make sense of them. It's like my Dad's tapping. They ran it through every cryptogram and code and mathematical breakdown, and then they finally found out it was a damaged nerve that made his hand spasm. We only _wanted _it to be communication."

"Just let me try something? Please? They were both Muggle songs I – well, that I think I heard. And she did respond, even if it was just to being mimicked." Justin was begging openly, and to his amazement, his mother did not cringe away from him as he took a step forward. Far from it, she pushed herself out of Neville's hold, sprinting across the room to clutch the blue tunic in both hands and haul their faces together until it looked like she was about to kiss him.

In his whole life, he had never seen anything like this, and he felt bizarrely useless, the warning ringing hollow on his lips. "If you upset her any more, I'm –"

Justin was singing again; the music still strange, discordant, but with an urgency to it that was as tight as the fingers that creased his uniform.

"_Well, who are you?  
I really wanna know.  
Tell me, who are you?  
'Cause I really wanna know."_

No screaming this time, but no humming, either. Her eyes closed, her face twisting as if in pain, and she moaned with a sound of frustration so raw it was like hearing fingernails raked jagged across a heart. "Close." Justin whispered. "It's close, but she's not quite clicking…maybe if I tried something else?"

Now the tune was lilting, almost jaunty.

"_We'd like to learn a little bit about you for our files,  
We'd like to help you learn to help yourself."_

She went berserk.

There was no other word for it. Alice completely erupted, spinning around and screaming, shrieking at the top of her lungs, weeping and laughing and stomping her feet, and now she _did _kiss Justin, but it was messy, lost in tears and cries and beating her head against his chest as her hands fluttered, tore, struck against her mouth so hard that her lip split, but she couldn't have cared less. Red droplets scattered the blue wool, her hands, Neville's hands as he tried to pull her away, but she was fighting him, trying for some incomprehensible reason to get back to Justin.

"Stop it!" Neville yelled, trying to make himself heard over the hysteria. "For fuck's sake, what were you –"

"Hush!" Justin snapped back at him as if _he_ were the one out of line, and Neville found himself standing helpless witness to this seeming contagious chaos as his mother wrenched away again, falling to her knees at the other wizard's feet with tears still streaking through the scarlet down her face. She was humming again – broken by sobs, by gasps, but humming. The same short phrase, over and over, and Justin knelt, his eyes shining like madness as he clutched her hands with a breathlessly eager whisper. "Go on, love. You can hear my tone, at least?"

"If you don't quit this," Neville whispered shakily, "I'm about three seconds from –"

Again he matched her, the effect only all the more eerie on the haunting, dirgelike notes as his skilled tenor harmonized effortlessly to her broken soprano.

"…_And your mind is moving slow._  
_Go ask Alice,  
I think she'll know._She let go of his hands, sagging down to the floor again, weeping too hard to make any other sound, but there was no mistaking them for anything other than tears of sheer joy and unspeakable relief, and Justin's face lifted in a look of shock painted over awe. "She's in there, Neville. She's in there. That's not a coincidence. She knows who she is._"_

Neville's legs gave way completely beneath him, and he barely managed to sit on the floor beside them without outright collapsing. His heart was beating so fast that it seemed to drown out everything else, he could feel himself shaking, feel every emotion that could be more than enough alone to blow a man's mind to splinters roaring just outside the remains of reality like the howl of a winter gale just beyond the thin shield of a windowpane. He didn't, couldn't, wouldn't believe, but from somewhere, he heard himself ask the question anyway as he saw his hand reach out to touch the jutting, heaving shoulder. "Do…do you know _me_, Mum? Do you know who I am?"

He hoped, he prayed, he begged with all his heart that this once, oh please, there would be enough in eyes and touch and tone and sheer, raw magical yearning to get through at least the gist, and he didn't dare even breathe as the sobs hitched, caught, and the humming began again. Once, twice, and then the third time through, Justin had the words.

"_Your mother should know.  
Your mother should know."_

Silence, utter silence held the wake of those lines, and it took Neville three tries to make his mouth work at all. "Justin?"

"Yes?"

"You're forgiven," he whispered. "For anything."

OOO

"Hannah!" Neville knew that it was probably some abhorrent breach of etiquette to appear shouting when there was Royalty present, but he didn't care. He released Justin's arm, already running down the entry hall towards the dining room of the _Cauldron, _but he stopped, frowning in confusion as he saw his wife clearing the dishes from the table, apparently alone. "Hannah – where are they?"

"His Highness' mobile rang, and he had to go back," she explained. "Hermione took him about an hour ago…what took you so long?" A look of concern came over Hannah's face as she set down the platter of carrots, crossing to the doorway to reach up and brush the fringe back from his forehead. "Is everything all right, love? You look like hell!"

He had no idea how he looked, honestly, and he only vaguely recognized the signs of shock in the pallor of his own clammy, shaking hands as they grabbed hers tightly. "She's okay, Hannah!" It was a choked rasp of speech, barely legible, and he swallowed hard, but the desperate rush that followed was scarcely more coherent. "I mean, she's not okay, but she's sane, or at least, there's something, a little…my Mum, she's not all gone, she's…or, I mean –"

"Take a deep breath, Neville." He did as she said, but now the words wouldn't come at all, and Hannah looked past him to where he supposed Justin had followed him. "What happened?"

"His mother's humming," Justin explained, and it was at once a relief and almost infuriating that he managed to sound so perpetually, perfectly, poshly calm about it all. "It's not random. It's old Muggle music from her era, and we were able to communicate with her to a degree. Enough to establish that she knows who she is, and she knows who Neville is. Bit of a shock for him, though, understandably."

"Oh, Neville!" Hannah exclaimed, pulling her hands from his to throw her arms around his neck in a tight, giddy embrace. "That's – oh, honey! But you're…sit down. You look like you're about to faint."

He wanted to argue, but he found himself nodding instead, sinking gratefully into the chair she had summoned, his elbows braced on his knees, because the room _was _tilting in a way that the aftermath of Apparation could no longer justify. "Maybe," he admitted. Neville fisted both hands at his mouth, trying to fight down the ridiculous, smothering urge to burst into completely absurd sobs. "_Twenty-six years, _Hannah_…._"

"I've texted Hermione, told her to get back here as quick as she can." Justin's voice seemed to come from another world entirely, and the bizarreness of the statement didn't help, though he didn't want an explanation. "She's another Muggle-Born, I'm hoping between the two of us we'll know a wider range, be able to interpret her better. Trying to figure out what we're dealing with here…."

Hannah was kneeling beside the chair, fussing over him in a way he would usually have been embarrassed by, but her voice held an edge of annoyance as she looked over at her friend. "Not tonight, Justin, for Merlin's sake. Later."

"We're so stupid." Guilt had pushed its way to the forefront of the delirious mass of emotion, and Neville shook his head slowly, squeezing his eyes shut against his wife's too-kind gaze. "_I've _been so stupid!"

"Why would you say that?"

"Muggle…." He wanted to explain that it was unforgivable that he'd missed it this long, that he'd dismissed the humming along with everyone else, but he couldn't. It was too much. He was her _son, _he should have known. For years, for _decades _he'd comforted himself that they had tried everything, but that had been such a damned lie. A matter of minutes, and it had been so blindingly obvious. And even then, he'd tried to stop Justin, tried to….

"Did your Mum listen to a lot of Muggle music?" Hannah asked quietly, and from the warmth of breath and the intimacy of the whisper, her face must have been mere inches from his.

"I don't know," the confession hurt, physically hurt, aching deep in his chest and sticking in his throat. "I don't know. I don't _know her_. Oh, Merlin, I…."

"Hush, love, this is not your fault." Her voice was still gentle, but now firm as well, and she cupped her hand under his chin, lifting his head. She was blurred when he opened his eyes, and he bit his lip hard, blinking rapidly until the dangerous tears went back. "If the people who _did _remember what they were like before didn't know to try Muggle music, there's no reason you should have thought of it."

"Wernicke's Aphasia."

Both of their heads snapped around, and Neville shook his head, sure that he must have misunderstood the seeming gibberish Justin had just announced with such confidence. "_What_?"

"Wernicke's Aphasia," Justin repeated. He had taken a seat on one of the bar stools, and he held up the little device he had shown them earlier, the glass shining brightly with what looked like a block of tiny words. "My best guess, anyway, but it looks like a close match." He turned the device –the Blackberry, he'd called it -- again, nodding to himself as he tapped at the buttons, his face eerily lit by the unnatural glow. "Serious traumatic brain injury…partial or complete inability to comprehend written or spoken language…brain shifts to using other paradigms of symbolism for communication, such as mathematics or music, which are processed in other areas of the brain…specialization is often seen, where a patient will utilize only an isolated set of tools; it specifically mentions genres of music here, like communicating only in hymns. Words are iffy; sometimes, sometimes not."

A diagnosis. Enough that he had managed to break through to her, but that could just be blind luck. That a twenty-eight year-old Muggle-Born _politician _seemed to have an actual bleeding _diagnosis _inside of an hour when the best Healers in the magical world had nothing but "severe brain damage" after almost three decades…it was impossible.

Thankfully, Hannah's reaction seemed to confirm that it wasn't just so astonishing to his admittedly somewhat shell-shocked mind, and she was looking at her friend as if he had just sprouted wings from his ears as she stood and crossed the pub to stare over his shoulder. "How the –?"

"I looked it up on this," he offered gently, turning it so she could see more easily. "It's like every library in the world all at once. I searched 'communication disorders, brain injury, music.'"

"Every library in the…" Hannah let out a low, incredulous whistle. "I can't believe Hermione doesn't have one, if that's it."

But Neville didn't care _how _Justin had done it. He had gotten hold of himself now, and he straightened his robes as he stood and joined them, pleasantly surprised to hear how determined – and more importantly, how together – he sounded. "What's the cure?"

"Doesn't seem to be one, I'm afraid, dear chum," There was genuine regret in the grey eyes, though they never lifted from the glass, his fingers moving rapidly over the miniscule buttons. "But there _are_ sometimes improvements in communicability once the paradigm used is isolated."

Neville took hold of Justin's shoulder, probably harder than he had meant to, because he felt the other man pull back a bit. "Teach me every Muggle song you know."

"That's a tall order." He set the Blackberry on the bar, reaching into his pocket to pull out another, even smaller object. It was bright, metallic red, about the size of a Galleon, but rectangular, with a single bulls-eye shaped white button. A long, white wire trailed from one end, branching into two thumbnail-sized knobs. "There's two hundred songs right here, and I have fifty times that at home."

Normally, he would have laughed, accused Justin of having him on, but now was not normal, not by a long shot, and he only nodded, his jaw set stubbornly. "I'm more than ready."

There was a beep, the image on the Blackberry changed, and Justin tapped a few more buttons, then smiled, making it dark again and returning it to his pocket. "Hermione's on her way…do you want me to tell her to come here or to St. Mungo's, or would you rather I have her wait?" He put a hand on Neville's shoulder, his tone maddeningly appeasing. "Nothing wrong with that, mate, give yourself a bit of time to process all this. It must be quite a –"

"We're going now," he interrupted brusquely, pulling Justin unceremoniously to his feet and looking to his wife. "Hannah?"

She shook her head regretfully, "Someone's got to stay here in case the babies wake up. But I'll wait up, I don't care how late you all are; I want to know everything."

"I wish I had my Nano." Justin had put the knobbed ends of the wire in his ears, and he had the tiny red thing in the palm of his hand, scowling at it as he tapped at the bulls-eye and muttered nonsensically to himself. "Can't do by genre, no playlist for this, not really….somehow I doubt she'd know Wham…sixties, seventies…don't I have any bloody disco?"

His attention was pulled away from the strange, one-sided conversation by Hannah's tender kiss on his cheek. "Good luck, Neville, this is so wonderful, I'm so happy for you."

"Thank you." He returned the kiss, bending his mouth to a tight little smile. "Love you."

Neville allowed Justin to retrieve his wand before they left the pub, and true to his word, Hermione was already there when they Apparated to the fourth-floor waiting area of the hospital. She didn't seem to think anything of it as he pulled the wires from his ears, balling them into his fist as he regarded her with a tense, worried frown. "Was His Highness terribly angry?"

"No, not at all," Hermione assured him quickly, then turned to smile at Neville. "He actually apologized again for deceiving you and Hannah, Neville, and extended an invitation for you to come for lunch at Buckingham to make up for it…and to let you know he offers his prayers and regards for the welfare of your parents and his sympathy for your grandmother."

Unlike Justin, he did not give a flying Pixie for His Highness' opinion on _anything_ at the moment, and he snorted dismissively. "That's lovely."

Hermione wasn't, he knew, any kind of nobility at all, but she seemed more offended than he had expected, her lips pressing together in a thin line of disapproval at his reaction. "He lost his own mother when he was still a boy, Neville. No matter what you think of him for what happened this evening, that wasn't an empty gesture. Neither is being invited for lunch at the Palace."

"I'm sure it's a higher bloody honor than the Order of Merlin," Neville snapped, "but right now, Hermione, I don't fucking care. Did Justin tell you why we need you?"

" No, he just said to hurry. I came straight away."

"How well do you know music?"

"Music?" Hermione's confusion was clearly total now. "I can't sing for –"

"Classic rock," Justin interrupted. "Sixties and seventies, particularly, though maybe a bit of the really popular songs from the fifties. Elvis, that sort of thing, but I'm not sure."

"My Mum and Dad like that kind of music, but I don't _know_ most of it, but…why?" Her hands went to her hips. "Neither one of you is making any sense."

Justin took a deep breath, steepling his fingers in front of his mouth and closing his eyes for a moment, then he opened them again, speaking with a precise, level cadence that seemed to belong more to the corridors of the Ministry than this place. "Alice Longbottom seems to have a case of Wernicke's Aphasia. It's a brain disorder that sometimes occurs after traumatic injury has damaged the communication centers. Her humming is fragments of classic Muggle rock, and she's using it to communicate."

The indignation had changed to curiosity, and he could see the gleam of potential new knowledge light her dark eyes. "How so?"

"Do you know any David Bowie, Hermione?"

"Yeah…."

"_Ground control to Major Tom…" _Justin sang, then plucked at his lapel as Hermione's eyes narrowed. "That's what she calls me, or at least, that's the _melody _she has assigned to refer to me instead of a name, and considering my uniform, it makes a lot of sense. It's not random; it's very distinct symbolic communication, and the broader the base we have to go on, the more hope we have of matching the music to its sources and figuring out what she's saying."

All traces of confusion had vanished, and Hermione nodded briskly, already starting down the corridor that lead to his parents' ward. "I'll see if I can file a motion for temporary humanitarian parole for Finnigan first thing tomorrow. Dean was one of the most massive Beatles fans I've ever met...I think he could recite the whole catalogue backwards in his sleep. His best friend had to have picked up some of that. And I can – oof!"

They hadn't looked before rounding the corner, and Hermione was knocked off her feet as she slammed headlong into someone coming the other way in just as much of a hurry. Neville himself barely avoided stepping on her, and it took him a moment to realize who they had so abruptly encountered. "Harry! Tony!"

The two Aurors seemed just as surprised to see them, but Harry had already recovered, bending to help his friend to her feet. "Sorry 'bout that, didn't look. You okay?"

"I'm fine." She shrugged off the assistance, scrambling up with her cheeks flaring in embarrassment as she sorted out her rumpled robes.

Seeing that she was unhurt, Harry turned to the rest of them, and his eyebrows rose in immediate alarm as he got a better look at Neville. "Merlin's robes, man, your color's awful…are you sick?"

"He's had a bit of a rough week, that's all," Justin answered before he could. "But what brings you gentlemen to St. Mungo's? Must be after ten!"

"Rough week for us, too," Harry made a face. "Tony was updating me on the messages this afternoon, and then we got called out."

"Hope it wasn't too serious," Hermione said.

Anthony sighed, gesturing past them with his head. "We're here for the autopsies."

"Autopsies!" Justin's eyes widened. "Tony, my good man, I _do_ hope I was mistaken in thinking that was plural."

"Rita Skeeter missed her hair appointment today, and the stylist called the Enforcers," Harry explained, the professional steadiness not entirely masking either his exhaustion or the undercurrent of dark humor. "Off the cuff, we're guessing she got her last byline sometime yesterday. And we came here from the last one not ten minutes ago…terrible business; outright curse-and-run with a blatant AK in the middle of the city. Obliviators are still on it."

Neville felt something cold and sick seem to crawl through the pit of his stomach. There had been a time when such an attack would barely have been worth mention, but that was long ago. Wasn't it? "Who was it?"

"The attacker – sod it, the _murderer - _is still unknown," Anthony said darkly. "Flash came out of the shadows of a doorway, then the witnesses heard a crack they're calling a 'second gunshot,' but it was almost certainly Apparation."

"And the victim?" Hermione pressed.

"Hestia Jones."

"Megan's mother?" Justin winced at Harry's confirming nod. "Does she know?"

"Once autopsy rules out Polyjuice or transfiguration, I'll be going to the Smith's." Harry closed his eyes, taking off his glasses to rub at his forehead. "Not my favorite part of the job."

"But that still doesn't answer why you three are here," Anthony pointed out.

Hermione was looking at him very strangely, and there was a trace of a smile on her lips, though there was no seeming pleasure in it. "First, I'd like to know who attacked you."

Anthony blinked, drawing back as if she'd pulled her wand on him. "What?!"

"I'm not the one who needs glasses, Harry is." She crossed her arms, nodding towards Anthony as the smile widened ever so slightly and smugly. "He had his left sleeve pushed up and was cradling his forearm when I ran into Harry…and he's still guarding it."

Yet rather than looking caught or angered, Anthony laughed, even as he abandoned all effort to hide that he was indeed shielding his arm. "No one attacked me. You don't want to know, Hermione."

"Tony , you don't have to protect any of us," Hermione persisted. "Unless this has to do with your work as an Unspeakable…?"

"Fine," he shrugged, and there was an I-warned-you glitter in his deep brown eyes. "Skeeter was surrounded by a lovely puddle of bodily fluids, and I'm not always the most graceful thing if I lose traction." Anthony's amusement became an outright grin as he saw Hermione's wince of disgust. "Bashed my arm good on the corner of her dressing table, and I'm having it checked out to see if I cracked something, because it still hurts. Satisfied?"

"You're right, I didn't want to know."

"Turnabout's fair play, though," Anthony added. "You still haven't answered what you're all doing here, or what's wrong with Neville."

"There's been a breakthrough with my parents." He had expected to have more trouble saying it, but the encounter had diffused the earlier shock, and it was more like relating something that had happened months ago to someone else. "Justin's figured out a way to communicate with my mother, and it has to do with his being Muggle-Born, so Hermione's going to try to help too."

The two Aurors exchanged a long look, clearly at a loss for what to say. At last, Harry took a breath, clapping Neville awkwardly on the shoulder in a stilted balance between congratulations and condolences. "Wow, that's…."

"It's _very_," Neville agreed.

"Well…um…." Anthony cleared his throat, changing the subject. "If you don't mind, I need to talk to you tomorrow morning anyway, Neville. It's about the messages…there've been some developments." He paused, and his face softened, the professional curtness fading to the care of a friend. "But will you promise to let me know how it goes with your folks? I'll pray for you."

"Pray for us, too, Tony." Harry said grimly. "Because if we don't figure out what's going on, I think we might have a real problem on our hands."

"We already do," Anthony agreed. "At least this time we know who it's not, though."

Neville chuckled, catching the reference easily. "Yeah, I think he's definitely retired; although he did say at Gran's funeral that if you caught the bastard, he'd be willing to reconsider, and he might even think up a few new moves."

Harry rolled his eyes. "As Head of the Auror Department, I'll pretend I didn't hear that. Still, though, I certainly think I liked it better."

Hermione tilted her head at him, a thin crease appearing between her neatly plucked brows. "You _liked_ it when Seamus was –"

"No," Harry corrected. "When we knew who we were looking for. I'd rather track a friend than a phantom." He let the dark pronouncement hang for a moment, then took a step to the side, motioning down the hall beyond. "But we have our fun night, you have yours. Good luck, and Neville?"

He had started to pass, but something in the other man's tone stopped him, and when he looked back, there was an ineluctable shadow in the green eyes that he could have sworn was envy. "Yes?"

"I'm glad you get your mother back."

OOO

Neville had not even opened the door of the ward all the way before she was there. At the first click of the latch, Alice leaped off the bed, dashing across the length of the room to fling herself on Justin, throwing her arms around his neck and showering his face with kisses like a long-lost lover. He stiffened, startled, and the look on his face was so completely discombobulated that he didn't fault Hermione her giggles in the slightest, despite the filthy glare it earned her from his mother. "Oh dear, gracious!" Justin caught his eyes desperately over the disheveled brown head. "Neville, a bit of assistance, if you please?!"

He couldn't remember the last time he'd wanted to laugh in this place, but even though he managed to contain it so that she wouldn't take it the wrong way, he could feel himself smile as he gently pried her away. It was impossible, of course – it had been hours only – but Alice felt stronger, and there was no questioning that there was so much more life in her eyes, more color in her cheeks, more purpose in her movements, real effort to communicate beyond even the humming that was bubbling along faster than he'd ever heard before.

But then, he supposed, it made heartbreaking sense. He couldn't even imagine what it must be like for her; to have been locked away in her own private prison for more than a quarter of a century, then suddenly given a glimpse of freedom. How much had she ever been mad, Neville wondered, and how much was just the eccentricities of a life lived so isolated? So many times, he had wished he could have known his mother, the witch so many people talked about so fondly, but he could see that fierce, loving spirit himself now, reflected in the amount of strength it had taken to never give up. Could he have done that? If no one had understood anything for twenty-six years, would there still have _been_ attempts to be suddenly decoded?

She had stopped trying to molest Justin now, turning her attention to examine Hermione with open fascination, running the ribboned edge of her cuff between her fingers and against her cheek, smelling her hair, touching the other witch's mouth and scrutinizing the smear of lipstick on her fingertip, then licking it. Even this afternoon, he would have dismissed it as random seeking of new sensations, but nothing was taken for granted now. Was it really so different from what witches normally did, except that they had benefit of language?

As he looked at the dismal, pale blue hospital robes and the utilitarian shoulder-length chop of her unkempt hair, he felt suddenly guilty for letting her live that way. What if he brought her some real clothes, had Hannah choose her some things for her hair? How much was her madness skin deep? Between learning to speak to her and just not _treating _her with the assumption that she was mental, how far back to them _could _she come?

His musings were broken as Alice took a deliberate step back from Hermione, slapping her hands against her head in self-rebuke. Neville was about to reach for her wrists to stop her, but she visibly collected herself – the first time he had seen any such attempt at self-control – and turned back to Justin. The young officer braced himself, but she only grabbed his hands, the humming coming again in a barrage that was repeated over and over, but so fast that Justin had to shake his head helplessly.

"Can…you…slow…down…Mrs –" Hermione enunciated each word slowly, loudly, and carefully, but Justin cut her off with a look, pulling one hand free to manipulate the device in his pocket. He had already threaded the wire inside his tunic and up his collar, the little knob secured in his ear with a Sticking Charm.

"No, no, you have to…." His sleek, dark head tilted minutely, and he grinned suddenly. "I've got it."

"_Slow down, you move too fast,  
Gotta make the morning last._"

It was still like a miracle to see. The moment Justin sang the fragment of tune, the babble stopped completely, then repeated again, but slower, maybe half the speed. Communication. Such a beautiful, beautiful thing, and he was grateful to see something of the same awe in Hermione's eyes, even if Justin himself was completely absorbed in Alice and his pocket wireless.

"You have to sing _at_her, too?" Hermione asked in a whisper, as if afraid to break the spell.

"Well, yes," Neville agreed. "Which means needing to know twice as much music. But here, now, see what I mean that she makes sense?"

She didn't answer, her attention pulled back to the others by something in the latest round of humming that made her mouth drop in open astonishment. "That's amazing."

Justin grinned, humming back to Alice, and as she responded again, prompting a quiet "oh" from Hermione, he couldn't help but feel a burst of frustration at being clearly the only one left out of the conversation, though it didn't escape him that this must only be the vaguest edge of what his mother had lived with. "Maybe if you know the words, I'm sure it's quite amazing." The cut was softened as he spread his hands with a beseeching smile. "I'm a Pureblood, guys, please, have a bit of mercy?"

"It's three bits, actually," Justin explained. "Her way of making a sentence, I think:  
_  
Ground Control to Major Tom…_  
_People talking without speaking.  
People hearing without listening.  
People writing songs, that voices never shared.  
No one dared disturb the sound of silence.__"_

I love you  
Cause you tell me things I want to know…

He'd never liked poetry, never been good with symbolism or codes, and he frowned uncertainly. "If I'm getting this right, that's saying she's grateful to you for interpreting for her when she hasn't been able to communicate in so long?"

Justin nodded. "More or less, I'd quite agree."

Neville reached into his pocket, pulling out the sweet wrapper from earlier that night and displaying it on his open palm. "Ask her, Justin, if there's anything in these. I don't want to miss something else if she's been trying to tell me. Or are they just tokens? Bright things?"

"All right, just give me a moment. This isn't that easy."

Hermione took a small step forward, raising her hand as if she were still a schoolgirl. "Mind if I try?"

"Of course, Hermione, go ahead."

Her mouth opened, and she seemed about to say something else, then she stopped, fixing both men with a withering glower. "You will not laugh."

"My word of honor," Neville promised solemnly.

There was a long moment as she visibly gathered her courage, then Hermione began to sing, so quietly that he had to strain to hear…and, he had to admit, even though he didn't know the song, not very well. "_Cheer up, sleepy Jean,  
Oh, what can it mean?"_

Her efforts brought only a baffled look from Alice, and she stopped at once. "It isn't working."

"She's off-key," Justin observed. "Badly."

"I told you I couldn't sing," Hermione replied defensively.

"The point is," Justin clarified with careful diplomacy, "you're distorting the melody, and that's all she's hearing. May I?"

Hermione folded her arms, her mouth quirking into an odd little smile that he couldn't tell if was meant to mock herself or Justin. "Certainly, Major."

One black eyebrow lifted in feigned offense, and Justin tapped the insignia of his uniform, clearing his throat. "Flight Lieutenant, if you please."

They exchanged a smile at this, then he took the wrapper from Neville, extending it towards Alice as he offered his own version of the song Hermione had just attempted.

"_Cheer up, sleepy Jean,  
Oh, what can it mean?"_

This time, it was met not with confusion, but a high, trilling cry of laughter, and Alice clapped her hands eagerly, humming something that Justin quickly translated to words.

_"I've got to admit it's getting better, a little better all the time."_

Neville didn't want to become pushy when they had only so recently gotten through at all, and he was relieved that he didn't have to say anything more, because Justin had already begun again, tapping the sweet wrapper in his hand.

_"Listen to me one more time, how can I get through?  
Can't you see that I'm trying to get to you?  
Open up your eyes now, tell me what you see."_He had expected a shrug, maybe an expression of affection of some kind, a melody that was bright and happy or bittersweet and tender. Even though Gran in her unflagging practicality had always insisted that the sweet wrappers were empty ritual from a devastated mind, he had sentimentally taken them as signs of some lingering affection; the prettiest, tastiest morsels of what remained of her life offered in the fragments of maternal love. What he had not expected was to see her face become instantly serious, to have her snatch it away and press it deeply back into Neville's palm as both her humming and Justin's accompaniment took on a dour, martial rhythm.  
_  
"There's something happening here.  
What it is ain't exactly clear.  
There's a man with a gun over there,  
Telling me I've got to beware.  
It's time we stop, children, what's that sound?  
Everybody look what's going down."_

Even without the words, her expression was unmistakable, and he stared down at the crumpled wrapper as if he had never seen it before. Which, apparently, he had not. "A warning? They're supposed to be some kind of warning?"

"My parents were dentists," Hermione observed dryly, "and even they were never that persistent about trying to have me off sweets."

His confusion must have been obvious to his mother, and the reaction was as alarming as it was abrupt. Alice wheeled away from him with a scream of raw, enraged anguish, then ran back to her bed, diving beneath it so recklessly that he thought at first she was throwing herself down on the floor like a toddler. She was up almost at once with her box, and she flung it towards them, screaming again as it split open, scattering sweet wrappers and coins, bits of foil, her old Auror's badge, her wedding ring, and age-yellowed letters to skitter haphazardly across the tiles.

She watched them for a single, heaving breath, then collapsed facedown onto the bed, her humming muffled by the sheets and shaken by the sobs that clenched her frail shoulders.

Justin seemed as baffled as he was, then a slow epiphany came into his eyes, and though his voice echoed her accusing tones, it was only sympathy on his face and kindness in his manner as he crossed the ward to approach her.  
"_Better cut off all identifying labels,  
Before they put you on the torture table."_"That's…no, it's something else, too…

"Look at me, I'm in tatters  
I'm a shattered  
Shattered…"

She didn't protest as Justin sat next to her on the bed, but nor did she seem at all comforted when he wrapped her in his arms, rocking her as he had seen Neville do and hushing her softly. _"_Alice, Alice, no…you're doing wonderfully, you're…oh, bugger it, you can't understand!"

His face screwed up in concentration, then eased, and when he sang, it sounded at once like a lullaby and a prayer.

"_And when the broken-hearted people  
Living in the world agree  
There will be an answer, let it be.  
For though they may be parted,  
There is still a chance that they will see…."_Neville had been sure they had lost her for the night, but incredibly, Alice collected herself again, sitting up in Justin's embrace to cup his face in both hands. He listened intently, his own hand drifting again to his pocket, but he couldn't reach it from his twisted position. "I can't…no, it's two parts again. This is so confusing."

He took a deep breath, listening as the phrases repeated themselves, but just as Neville was sure that his friend was at a total loss this time, he had the words.

"_He comes on smooth, cool and kind,  
But he wants your body not your mind.  
He's got style, personality,  
But he's the devil in reality.  
Forward he cried from the rear  
And the front rank died  
And the general sat and the lines on the map  
Moved from side to side…"  
_  
Hermione let out a low, ironic snort. "Obviously, she's not too fond of somebody."

"But who could she be trying to warn me about with candy wrappers?" Neville frowned as he crossed the ward to join them on the bed, motioning Hermione to follow as he stepped carefully around the messily strewn debris of a ravaged life. "This is so important to you, Mum. I really do want to know. I do…Merlin, please forgive me for being so dense."

Hermione had paused behind him, bending to examine a handful of the gaudy wrappers. "Has it always been the same kind she gives you?"

"No, just whatever she happened to have," he shrugged. "Droobles, Ice Mice, Chocolate Frogs, Acid Pops, Lemon –"

Hermione's head snapped up, her eyes wide as her hand fisted down tight on the wrappers. "Lemon drops?!"

The answer hit him like a hex. "Dumbledore!"

"Dumbledore?" Justin scowled, not understanding, but Neville didn't care, and Hermione was already on her feet again, grabbing his arm and thrusting the fistful of wrappers at him like a trophy.

"I'd put my wand to it, Neville!" She declared passionately, her face shining. "He always had sweets around. He even used…oh, Merlin, he always used _names of sweets _as the passwords to his office!"

Comprehension dawned at last in Justin's gray eyes, and he looked at Alice – who was watching the entire exchange in breathless silence – with an incredulous new respect. "Not mad at all, are you, old girl? Bloody brilliant, actually."

"But why was she warning me about Dumbledore?" He ran a hand through his hair in frustration, sighing deeply. "She doesn't even know he's been dead for years."

Though she clearly still had no understanding of his words, his mother seemed to see the sentiment behind them, and she crawled across the bed to kneel beside him. It was so strange – he had always been the one who tended her – but it spoke to something deeper than memory as she took his head in her arms, pulling it to her chest and combing her fingers through his hair, the humming mixed in with tiny murmurs and soothing sounds that held all the tremulous longing of a lifetime she had missed.

"_Dream sweet dreams for me  
Dream sweet dreams for you.  
Close your eyes and I'll close mine  
Good night sleep tight…."  
_  
Justin trailed off, and though he couldn't see, the smile was there in his voice. "She _is_ your mother, Neville. She's trying to put you to bed. I think she can see you're about done for."

Reluctantly, Neville pulled away, shaking his head even as he took her hands, kissing the fingertips as his eyes stayed locked on hers. The warm brown he saw in the mirror came from his father, but the shape of them was hers, he could see now, and he wondered how he had missed that before. "Tell her I'm staying. I don't want to go. Not yet. Please."

"Justin, what about that one, I think it's Aerosmith?" Hermione prodded hesitantly. "'_I Don't Want To Miss A Thing_?'"

"Too late, that was nineties." He was able to reach his pocket now, and he was silent for almost a full minute, his hand clenching rhythmically with almost inaudible little clicks before he found what he wanted.

"_Now that I can be alone with you  
I won't throw away the chance  
There's no other place like home with you  
I just wanna stay here and love you."_

Hermione tilted her head, raising one eyebrow. "A little bit creepy, don't you think?"

"We'll just have to ask the dear lady to forgive a few incestuous overtones, I'm afraid." Justin let out a long sigh, pressing his fingers into his temples in a gesture Neville recognized all too clearly. "I fear my brain's about to crisp itself as it is. This is like some mad quiz show."

"I'm sorry, Justin, this isn't fair to you." It was hard, so much harder than it ever had been, but it _wasn't _fair to ask so much of the other wizard when this had been meant to be nothing more than a dinner invitation, and he made himself draw back, giving his mother's hands one final squeeze. "I'll…tomorrow. Tell her I'll be back tomorrow?"

He was already clicking away again, muttering to himself. "There's that wretched thing from Annie…."

"My moral opposition to it aside," Hermione shook her head, "it's the wrong genre."

"I'm running out of ideas. I need my proper iPod for this."

Hermione considered it for several seconds, then sat on the bed next to him. "You said some fifties might be okay?"

"Go for it."

"_Good night, sweetheart,  
Well it's time to go –"_

Justin's face lit up in a smile of relief, and he took over almost at once, clearly recognizing what she was suggesting easily.

_"Good night, sweetheart,  
Well it's time to go.  
I hate to leave you but I really must say;  
Good night, sweetheart, good night."_

Alice had been waiting patiently for his answer, and her own was calm, but not at all resigned as she reached out to stroke her hand along her son's cheek. He wanted to look away from all that was there in her eyes, and it seemed impossible that he ever could have thought she didn't know who he was, that she could have thought him a mere caretaker.

They hadn't even let him come see her until he was six. What must it have been like to lose a baby and next see a child, to watch that child become a teenager, then a man in helpless glimpses months apart? What had the humming meant the first time he was taller than she was? The first time the cheeks beneath her hand were no longer boyishly smooth and round? The first time she had seen them crossed with scars? The theory alone was painful enough, but if he dared even consider the idea of it happening with his own children…well, it was enough to drive a person mad.

"_I can't believe it's happened to me.  
I can't conceive of any more misery.  
Ask me why  
I'll say I love you and I'm always thinking of you_"

"Tell her I love her too, Justin." He heard his voice catch, almost break, because even after the translation had been offered, she was still repeating it, as if to drive home to him in every breath the truth that she had never, never really let him go. "Tell her I always have, tell her…I…please. Just tell her."  
_  
"Every time I tried to tell you, the words just came out wrong;  
So I'll have to say I love you in a song."_She answered only with a smile, and he could only leave by promising himself, swearing to himself that he would be back the next day, and the day after that. As often as it took to….

He was almost at the door when he heard it. She had often made noises, inarticulate syllables scattered among the humming, and he had never thought anything of the guttural bits and pieces, and maybe they _hadn't_ been anything. Maybe it was only now, with hope renewed and the fragile edge of possibility dangling like a key suspended through iron bars on a spider's silk that they were anything, but there was no question about it as her voice came quietly after them. _"Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey hey, guuu-baaah."_

The world stopped halfway through a breath. Goodbye. She'd –

As if someone had grabbed reality by the edges and given it a firm twist, the floor canted under his feet, and the last thing he was particularly aware of was Hermione's shout for Justin to catch and the rather comforting realization that he was, actually, very much done.

TO BE CONTINUED


	6. Millestrata

He was no longer at St. Mungo's. That much was certain, as the bed was far too soft, far too comfortable, and very, very familiar. It was, in fact, his own, and the face that appeared hovering over him when he opened his eyes was heart-shaped and beautiful, framed in thin, golden curls that had escaped her loose ponytail.

Neville sat up carefully, surprised to find that he wasn't in any pain, nor was there the sick, tingling aftermath of a Stunner. It didn't make sense, then, that he had been knocked unconscious, and he turned to his wife, frowning bemusedly. "Hannah?"

She was sitting on the edge of the bed, already wearing a sleeveless pink nightdress, and she didn't seem at all as worried as she probably should have been, curious more than concerned as she reached out to take his hand. "How are you feeling, Neville?"

"Confunded," he admitted. "What…?"

"You fainted, love."

He stared at her, unable to believe she would be joking about whatever had knocked him out. "I do not faint."

"It's okay," Hannah's hand slid up his arm to squeeze his shoulder reassuringly, but he shook her off, getting up and beginning to unbutton his robes to look for spell damage himself. It couldn't be good if she was trying to hide it from him, and he needed to know what had happened before he could even think about… the other. "Neville," she protested again, "no one is holding it against you."

The outer robe was already on the floor, and opened only the top two buttons of the shirt beneath before pulling it up and off, pausing with his arms twisted awkwardly above his head to snort skeptically at her. "I have been through more shocking and bizarre shit in my life than… well, I don't faint."

Cuffs. He'd forgotten to unbutton the bloody cuffs, and he was stuck now. Just fantastic. He tried to bring his arms back down to get to them, but the shirt snagged behind his head, and Hannah chuckled quietly, standing on the bed to reach his upraised wrists. "You heard your mother speak for the first time since you were a year old. That's in rather a different category than anything else. Now hold still, stop squirming, and I'll get you out."

"I'm not…" His hands were abruptly free, and he stripped out of the shirt at once, peeling the undershirt away in almost the same motion as he turned to face her, all embarrassment forgotten. "I didn't imagine that, then?"

Hannah shook her head gently, taking the undershirt that still dangled from one hand that now hung limp at his side and gesturing with her wand to summon a pair of his pajama trousers from the dresser to the bed. "Not according to Justin and Hermione."

"Where are they?" Neville's mind was still spinning in a frantic search for Things To Do. "I have to thank them both."

He took a step towards the bedroom door, heedless that he was now half-naked, but his wife's firm grip on his belt stopped him. "You can thank them in the morning. They've already gone home." There was no getting away from either her hold or the determined undercurrent in her voice that said she would not be distracted easily, and he felt his shoulders slump.

At least her head was down, her fingers busy at buckle and buttons, and he was grateful that he didn't have to meet her eyes as his voice dropped in shame. "Did they tell you what an unforgivable fool I've been?"

"They told me nothing of the sort."

"She's _in there_, Hannah." He took the pajamas from her, stepping into them and tying them at the waist, but then there was nothing else for it, and the lack of judgment in her look ached more than any well-earned reproach could have. "I think she's almost completely sane, as much as anyone could hope to be without being able to communicate for that long. It's so obvious… I should have seen it all along! What kind of man–" Neville turned away from her, unable to go on. The mix of guilt and grief for the years lost, the terrifying hope of the years to come… it was just too much.

Hannah was undeterred, however, and she circled around him, lifting one of the clenched fists to her breast and prying open his fingers to press her own against the round scars on his palm. "Don't say that. What kind of man you are is right here, and written a hundred other places on your body."

He shrugged, the chuckle rumbling bitter in his chest as he closed his hand over hers to hide the marks again. "A few old scars excuse nothing."

"You got 'a few old scars' because you _don't_ take excuses." She pulled her hand loose, stepping forward until their bodies were pressed together, her arms wrapping around his neck as she trailed her fingers over the thick latticework of lines that still marked his back. "Because you're brave and loyal and a good, good man whose biggest failing other than a congenital inability to hang up his robes is that he's far too hard on himself."

It would be so easy to agree, to kiss her and fall into her embrace and just let it all go, but he couldn't. Bad enough that he had been so stupidly weak as to faint at what should have been such a wonderful revelation that still strangely hurt so much. He ducked out from under her arms, crossing to the bed and turning back the duvet to climb beneath without looking back. "I have to meet with Tony in the morning. And then…"

"Your mother." She had climbed into the bed behind him, and he could feel her curled against his back, her breath against the crook of his neck, and there was so much more than just the end of his sentence in her tone. Neville closed his eyes, letting his head fall back to give the line of his throat to her lips, and oh, Merlin, how could he ever do any of this without her?

He rolled over, pulling her into his arms, breathing in the smell of her hair, letting one hand wander the warm, smooth satin to rest against her stomach that hadn't yet begun to swell with the child she carried and marveling for the thousandth time how he had ever been so lucky. For all that his body wore the scars of all they had already seen together, it was her strength that carried him forward beneath and beyond them, and it was like a spell unspoken that melted the tightness from his throat. It would be hard, but it wouldn't be impossible, he knew that now, and it wasn't so strange to feel the smile ease over his mouth. "Hannah, you've got to come with me tomorrow. I want her to meet you. _Really _meet you, I mean. I want to be able to tell her you're my wife, that she's got grandkids… there's just _so much…"_

Neville could feel her answering smile against his chest, even though her response remained eminently practical. "We'll have to wait until Justin's available. Tomorrow's a Monday; he has work."

"Hermione, though," he pressed, "she was going to try and get Seamus humanitarian parole… she thinks he'd know some songs, maybe. It's worth a try."

"Of course it is." She was quiet for so long that only the rhythm of her breathing assured him that she hadn't fallen asleep yet, but then she rolled away from him just enough to look him properly in the eyes, and there was a strange mix of hesitancy and resolve there. "Neville, I want you to think about postponing joining the Wizengamot for now. This breakthrough with your mother deserves a lot more than a week, and we still haven't finished sorting out your Gran's will and Willow Creek and what we'll do with Mimsy, not to mention that you need to have some time to…well, to _grieve_."

He shook his head reluctantly, though inwardly, he would have been all too happy to agree. "We need the money, Hannah. That's the whole reason I'm taking that job. Don't tell me it's gotten better with the doors shut completely on the _Cauldron_."

"We can make do," she insisted, but although her light, dismissive tone would have fooled anyone else, he heard the truth beneath, and it was a longer list of make-do and sacrifice than he would allow. "I'm a very resourceful witch."

"I don't doubt that, but neither of us are alchemists, which means you're not going to be turning the pots and pans into gold." She opened her mouth to argue, but he laid a finger across her lips. "I'm starting on the nineteenth."

For all the finality of the statement, he knew her better than to think that would really be the end of it, and he could almost count the seconds as she gathered her rebuttal until the precise moment her chin lifted defiantly. "I could borrow some more from Sue; just get us by."

Neville sucked in a deep breath, trying not to let her see the sting of the possibly inadvertent revelation. "I didn't know you'd been borrowing, Hannah. How long?"

"Nothing much, really." She shrugged, tucking back against him, but he could feel the tension along her body. "A few Sickles here and there; kids and tight budgets don't always mix."

"How much all together?"

"Thirty Galleons, give or take."

"Hannah!"

She twisted around again at his accusatory exclamation, and her face was flushed, though he wasn't sure if it was guilt or determination or some mix of the two. "You haven't had a problem with her loaning—or giving – to most of the DA."

"But—" He began, but she interrupted before he could get out more than the single word, even as her expression softened.

"But you've got that Gryffindor pride that would sooner sell everything than ask for a bit of help. Of course, if our positions were reversed, nothing on earth could keep you from giving _them _whatever you thought they could use."

There was no argument to that, but he couldn't just ignore the crawling foreboding that the news gave him. "Gran said friends and money mix like Centaurs and Werewolves."

"She had the option of Gringotts. We don't."

He sighed, letting his head drop back into the pillow, and she had won. They both knew it. "Have you borrowed from anyone else?"

"No."

"Not even Justin?"

"Especially not Justin."

Neville turned his head to look at her, surprised by the vehemence there. "Why _especially?_"

"You may be the one going into the Ministry, but I'm a businesswitch in my own right, Neville." She tapped on finger almost playfully against his chest. "Justin's synonymous with Unity right now. I don't want to alienate any of our already-dwindling clientele, and it's dodgy enough that we're known to be close childhood friends. Let rumors start flying that gold was changing hands…"

"Care to trade?" He smirked darkly, though he made no effort to hide that he was genuinely impressed with her savvy as he took her hand from his chest, kissing it. "I think you'll last longer in that Skrewt pit than I will."

"I don't know; you're a natural at some things."

"Like what?"

"Avoiding the subject." Her smile widened knowingly. "Like right now."

"What subject?"

"The reason you didn't faint."

"Ah."

"_Ah_."

The plaster on the ceiling had cracked in the corner. The patterns of light from the candle looked like a sunset on water. There was a spiderweb between the knob of the curtain rod and the edge of the window. His left foot was beginning to fall asleep from the weight of her legs over his at the angle they were laying.

She was still waiting.

He let out a deep, resigned breath, closing his eyes. "I wish I could do it on my own. Having to sit back and mostly just watch, waiting for them to–" A scream, high and shrill, sliced over his confession like a razor, and they both sat immediately bolt upright as if the mattress had been equipped with springs. "That's Peggy."

Their eyes met for an instant, then the covers were thrown back and off, and neither even paused as a second wail went up within the same breath as the first. Hannah snatched her wand from the nightstand. "Ernie."

The third was inevitable, and Trevor didn't miss his cue. "All of them." Neville didn't even bother to look for his own wand, just holding out his hand as they rushed to the adjoining door of the nursery and grabbing the polished cherry from mid-air as she tossed it to him.

He already knew it was no true emergency – no matter how hysterical the children became, there was always a different air to the screaming when it was something bad, and part of him wondered if Muggle parents had that advantage, or if it was one of the myriad little gifts of magic. Still, his heart was pounding with adrenaline as he took in the situation, flicking his wand to bring the lights back up from the dim glow of the nightlamp.

The twins were both out of bed, no surprise, and Peggy was standing on top of the toybox by the baby's crib, holding her hand and screaming like the Cruciatus. Trev seemed fine, all the way on the opposite side of the room between the two little beds, and Ernie… Neville winced. Ernie was holding himself up on the edge of the crib, and oh, Merlin, he was _covered _in sick.

There were times when he and Hannah were, he would almost swear, capable of Legilimency with one another, and this was one of those. They split up without a word or even a look, Hannah rushing to comfort her daughter as Neville lifted Ernie from his crib to soothe the baby against his bare—and therefore more easily cleaned—chest.

"Hush, hush… Peggy, lovie, what happened?" Amazing that he could still hear her with the baby shrieking like a banshee directly in his ear. He wasn't running a fever, not sweaty, no pins pricking him—_definitely _needed a new nappie, but that seemed an extremely recent development—tum didn't feel bloated or seem tender, no signs of blood or bruises…

"OWIE OWIE OOOOOWWIEEEEE!" Peggy thrust out her arm, flailing it so wildly that it took her mother several attempts to catch it.

"Give Mummy your hand… oooh…" Despite the auditory indicators that she had to have at least cut a thumb off, there were only two small, red marks across one tiny fingertip, coincidentally the approximate size of a certain younger brother's very sharp new teeth, but Hannah's face was one of deepest sympathy. "Poor little finger!" She kissed it, then tapped it with her wand, vanishing the marks at once and dropping the screams into hiccupping sniffles. "There we go! All better. No more owies."

She looked up to the still-crying but Scourgified baby in Neville's arms, and he handed Ernie over. "He's still going to need a bath in the morning. Change now, though." He reached into the crib, scooping out the soiled linens and taking a closer look at the stains against the slowly drifting pattern of little toy boats on their placid, pastel waves. Orange would be carrots, green beans, a bit of bready stuff, copious generalized slime, but the majority… he showed the blanket to her in bafflement. "_What_ has he thrown up?"

The answer came from Peggy in a voice of infinite martyrdom. "My biscuits!"

Neville turned to the little girl, careful to keep the right balance between severe and harmlessly curious to his question. "Why did the baby have your biscuits, Peggy?"

The dark pigtails whipped at her reddened cheeks as she shook her head quickly, slamming both hands over her mouth, but Trev—who had forgotten to keep crying in watching his parents' fascinating juggling act with his siblings—was more than happy to pipe up. "She's bad. She got outta bed."

Hannah already had Ernie on the changing table, and she kept one hand on his tum, holding him in place and using her wand to orchestrate powder, pins, and nappy without a pause as she shot a reproving glare over her shoulder at the older boy. "Why are _you _out of bed?"

Trev shrugged matter-of-factly. "Ev'body else."

"Baby woke up," Peggy mumbled, tugging at her ear. "Gave him biscuit." She looked up at her father, and it was the hopeful, sugar-sweet grin of the profoundly guilty. "Night-night, Ernie?"

Well, that explained why she'd been bitten. For all that she liked pink robes and could find anything with sparkles from a mile away better than an Accio, Peggy's burgeoning maternal instincts were best practiced solely on baby _dolls, _not baby brothers. Dolls did not bit when good intentions crammed entire biscuits into their faces, nor did they have gag reflexes.

Still, there was something off about the whole business, and he felt a slowly dawning horror as he looked again at the blanket. "Hannah, when was the last time you made oat cakes? I'm seeing currants here."

The muttered expletive he pretended not to hear told him eloquently that he had been completely right about the two weeks, but she was all sweetness as she scooped up Ernie, propping him over her shoulder as she knelt to the four year-old's level. "Peggy, where did you get the biscuit?"

Peggy was having none of it, her large brown eyes narrowing in suspicion. "It's mine."

"Margaret…"

Neville decided to streamline things, turning to the most reliable source of information they had on each of their older children…the other twin. "Trev, where'd she get the biscuit?"

"In her place," he replied instantly.

"Show me."

"NO! NO NO NOOO!" Hannah shifted Ernie expertly to her hip, catching Peggy around the waist with the other arm as the little girl flung herself desperately towards the pile of plush toys where her brother was leading Neville. "MINE! _NOOO_!"

The stuffed dragon egg was supposed to open to contain an adorable little dragon, but even before he opened it and the smell hit him, Neville knew it would be nothing so innocent. As it was, he swallowed hard, nearly gagging as he held the offending toy out at arms' length. "Sweet… Hannah, look at this."

Hannah gave a yelp of disgust, although, he thought, she managed to hold her composure rather well against the knowledge that at least one of her children had forcibly consumed something from the moldy, crumbling collection. "Peggy, that's _nasty! _We don't hide food! Icky, icky, smelly bad!"

The issue of edibility, however, was nothing compared to the issue of ownership, and Peggy tore herself away from her mother, grabbing hold of Neville's knees in a keening plea against the wand that was already poised to vanish her stash. "_MIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINE_!"

"Did you feed that to Ernie?"

"MINE MINE MINE!"

"Peggy gaved it to the baby and made him sick up!"

"DID NO!"

"I _saw you! Liar liar!"_

"DID NO!"

"HE _HIT_ ME!"

It was going to be a long night. Neville looked up from where he had Trev in a thrashing bear hug, catching Hannah's eyes as she smiled ruefully back at him over the head of the little witch she was herself restraining. "Are you quite sure you want to tell her she has grandchildren?"

He knew it was inappropriate, but as Ernie's cries rejoined the others, he couldn't help but laugh. "Actually, I think it can wait."

OOO

The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes the next morning was that the light was coming in through entirely the wrong window. It confused him for a moment, but then the truth clicked, and the lazy, warm tendrils of sleep vanished as quickly as if someone had tossed a bucket of ice water over his head. _Bloody hell, I've overslept! _

Neville sat up immediately, cuffing the sleep from his eyes, but as he scrambled on the nightstand for his watch, his fingers closed instead on a piece of parchment, and the panic faded, replaced by a slow smile and a shake of the head as he read the neat, looping script.

_Morning, Darling–_

_Yes, I let you have a lie-in, and before you start fussing and panicking, you needed it. I've already Flooed Tony, he knows you'll be late, and Professor McGonagall is absolutely not letting you back to finish things at the school until at least Wednesday. I've got Ernie downstairs, he still has a fussy belly, but Bernie and Mandy offered to take the twins to the zoo, and I told them to be sure they didn't eat too much junk. There's porridge in the icebox to heat up, or things for sandwiches if you'd prefer. We can go see your Mum this evening…I can't wait to really meet her._

_Love, your Hannah_

_PS: This was at the foot of the bed when I woke up. I haven't opened it, thought you'd want to take it to Tony intact._

The smile faded, and he closed his eyes again, half-hoping that it wouldn't be there when he opened them. But it was, as he knew it would be. A scroll, there beside his watch and wand. A scroll that contained a page and had come on the silent wings of a raven in the night.

OOO

Unlike most of the Aurors, Anthony's office was at the very lowest level of the Ministry of Magic, inside the Department of Mysteries, and although his fear of the place was long gone, there was still a chill up his spine as he started down the long, black corridor. The high, smooth walls, the strange blue flames and revolving room of doors were unavoidably eerie, even when the Department was busy.

His knock on the third door in the Time Room was answered immediately, and it opened to admit him, the visibility of the office contents confirming that he was expected. For all the foreboding of the surroundings, the office itself was as warmly personal as any other. The potted Dragon Lily he had given his friend still flourished on the corner of the desk next to a brightly chirping golden cricket in a tiny wicker cage, and the shelves were piled with books, their titles invisible but their pages well-worn, the surface of the desk itself heaped thickly with parchments and ink bottles between the photographs of Li and their two children; Asabi and Firyali,who waved and smiled.

Neville smiled sheepishly as Anthony stood from behind the desk, shaking the other wizard's outstretched hand. "Sorry I'm late, Tony. Can't really call it 'morning' any more."

"Don't worry about it." Anthony waved it off casually, conjuring a second chair with a flick of his wand. "You look like the sleep did you some good."

"Probably," he admitted, then grimaced as he pulled the scroll from his pocket, tossing it down on the cluttered surface. "Although I think I'll be costing you some more."

"Harry already brought me his." Anthony picked it up, running his wand over it a moment before tucking it away into a drawer. "I was waiting for the other half, thanks."

Neville took his seat, crossing his legs comfortably and leaning forward, then uncrossing them again quickly and putting both feet on the floor as he noticed the patch on the bottom of his shoe that was nearly worn through. "You've figured out where they're coming from, then?"

"Yes and no…" Anthony stopped himself, shaking his head, and the look on his face shifted from business to genuine concern. He reached into another drawer, bringing out a steaming kettle and two chipped but serviceable mugs, one blue and bearing an almost completely rubbed-away Ravenclaw crest, and the other the words _'Sola lingua bona est lingua mortua_.' Black tea with milk filled the one he poured for Neville, and cloudy green for himself. "Your mother, Neville, I want to know about that first. How is she?"

He stared down into the tea, breathing in the fragrant steam and taking a long, slow sip before answering. Earl Grey wasn't something he was usually fond of, he thought it had an almost perfume-like taste, but it was an excellent way to buy time. "She spoke to me last night. She said goodbye."

Anthony nearly dropped the kettle as he replaced it in the drawer, his head snapping up in disbelief. "She what?"

"She said goodbye," he repeated, then shrugged, trying and failing to make it seem like nothing of consequence. "I mean, she sang it, but…it was a word, Tony. A real word, and used the right way."

"Neville, that's incredible!" Anthony reached across the desk, grabbing his hand and pressing it tightly, his smile so giddy that an onlooker would have been forgiven for thinking the news concerned the Auror himself. "I'm so happy for you!"

"I couldn't have done any of it at all without Justin," Neville demurred uncomfortably. "He's the one, really, it's all him. He – what?" A strange shadow had flickered through Anthony's dark eyes at the mention of the other wizard's name, the smile faltering, and now he looked caught, letting go of Neville's hands and forcing a little laugh.

"It's nothing."

He folded his arms, his look carrying the unspoken chain of command that still stood between the survivors, even when life, as it had here, had theoretically overturned that hierarchy. It was only barely a joke that if Jimmy Peakes ever got elected Minister of Magic, he would still call Neville 'sir.' "Tony…."

Anthony let out a breath that was long and tight, bordering between a hiss and a sigh, closing his eyes and steepling his hands at his mouth before he looked up again, pressing his palms now flat to the desktop, every word measured. "Be _careful_, Neville. I'm not saying that he's trying to use what he's doing for your mother, but I know how you get when you feel like you owe someone something, and this is a _big _something."

"Justin's my friend, Tony," he was careful not to sound dismissive of the other man's obvious concern, but nor was he willing to believe the callously predatory motives that were being implied. "He's been Hannah's friend since they were first-years, and I thought he was yours too."

"_Justin_ is," Anthony agreed quickly, then hesitated. "But I'd beg you to be incredibly cautious with His Lordship. You're exactly what he's been aiming for, friendship be damned."

"Yes, I know, everyone's been telling me," Neville allowed some of the frustration to show in his voice, though he stopped short of actually rolling his eyes. "My so-called 'amazing influence' that somehow doesn't keep me from being two Knuts from bankrupt."

Anthony chuckled, then reached down to the floor next to his chair, picking up a motionless, brightly-colored copy of the local Muggle newspaper, the London Times and beginning to search through the pages. "Have you paid any attention to Muggle politics lately?"

"No, why would I?"

"Justin has." He held it out, now folded to the International News section and a stiff pair of photographs, one showing a mob of screaming, rapturous teenagers waving signs, and the other, incongruously, a dark-skinned, moderately handsome man of about forty wearing a suit and tie and standing at a lectern below the headline: _American Idols and Barak Stars, Is This The New Politics?_

"There's a bloke in the States," Anthony explained, "not much more of a political CV than Justin himself, truthfully, list of things against him long as my arm, but he's spitting distance from being one of the two nominees for their President, and what's got him there…well, Justin already has one, and you're the other. They're both grand orators – we all know those rhetoric classes at Eton weren't wasted – and he's got the youth on his side. That's what you have."

Neville stared in disbelief at the second photograph, astonished and a little intimidated by the mad intensity visible even on the motionless faces. Even without magic, he could almost hear the screams and slogans, see the tears rolling down the face of the girl in the front, the flash of the sun off her earrings. "I don't 'have' anyone. Not like _that_."

"_That_ is just knowing how to work a crowd." Anthony put the paper down, the disturbing pictures now hidden in favor of a much less worrisome picture of a pile of harmless junk and a smaller headline; _Afghan IEDs Becoming More Inventive. _"You have the respect and admiration of every witch and wizard in the UK under the age of thirty-five, and moreso than Harry in some ways, because you're a Pureblood, and you did what you did of your own accord. If you threw in hard behind Justin's cause, it wouldn't be a fringe anything for very long…don't give me that look. You've already mounted one revolution."

"And I take it you think this would be a terrible thing?"

"Not at all," he answered easily. "I'm all for Justin's unity…there are so many things that are so dangerous about the idea of completely shuttering ourselves away forever. But when it comes to it, I have to go Separatist."

"That makes no sense," Neville argued.

"Justin's unity exists in a Utopia. It assumes that everything will go right, but history isn't like that, and what if he's _wrong?" _A tight note of fear had crept into his voice, pushing it to a greater urgency. _" _What if they don't greet us with open arms? What if they _do _remember where they put the torches? It'll be too late. You can't Obliviate the world."

Neville took a deep breath, considering his answer carefully and unsure how much of the previous night's strange visit he should reveal. "He says they're going to find us anyway."

"Then we have to hide that much harder," Anthony declared firmly. "Neville, we are so vastly outnumbered…you have no real idea what a majority can do when they decide a minority has to be destroyed. Riddle's people were still the minority – a bullying, despotic minority – but when we mobilized the majority, it was over."

"That's not what ended it. It was already pretty much over when the reinforcements got there."

"Can I tell you something, Neville?" The swarthy hands fidgeted nervously with an ink-stained quill, and he sounded suddenly unsure of himself, though it seemed more as if he were warring over what he should say than if he should say it. "A story, sort of? About _my _grandmother?"

"Sure."

"Bubbe was born in Poland in 1930." There was an odd, rote quality to his words, as if he were struggling to keep all hint of emotion at bay. "Her family were Essene, Jewish magical blood, and when everything erupted with Grindelwald and with Hitler, they went doubly underground, using magic to help hide and smuggle their Muggle Jewish neighbors to safety. But they were caught by the Allgemeinwohl, their wands destroyed, and they were turned over to the SS – the Muggle Death Eaters – who took them to a place called Dachau that was…."

Anthony trailed off, and Neville saw him shiver, the wince and flash of expression across his face more eloquent than any words could have been. "Nevermind. Bubbe was the only one of her family who survived, and she was almost dead when she was rescued; she was terribly sick and weighed less than 70lbs."

"How awful!" It seemed a ridiculous understatement even as he said it, but Anthony wasn't offended, his mouth turning up into a bitter half-smile.

"One way to put it, yeah. She was rescued by a Russian, a Muggle soldier who wrapped her in his uniform coat and carried her all the way to hospital so that the lorry wouldn't rattle and hurt her more. She didn't speak Russian, and he didn't speak Yiddish or Polish, but his name was Antonin."

There was a pause, a searching look, as if trying to make sure something had gotten through, and Neville nodded as he put the pieces together. "I take it that's who you're named after, then?"

"Bubbe only had daughters, but her firstborn grandson.…" Anthony gestured at himself, then sighed. "It's somewhere between a lovely story and a terrible one on its own, but Neville, she was so, so, _so_ lucky. What the Muggles were doing at that place and a dozen others was called the Holocaust, and they killed _six million _Jews."

The number caught him off-guard, and he startled back, certain he must have misheard. Why, that was _sixty times_ the entire wizarding population of the UK! "That's impossible!"

"Six million before anyone did anything," he confirmed mercilessly. "The Allgeimenwohl killed another three-quarters of a million. There was a man in Russia who killed _twenty _million. And it's _still going on! _Right now, Neville. This isn't some mad phenomena of the past." He picked up the photograph of his daughters, pushing it across the desk to display their laughter over the antics of a Kneazel kitten, their white teeth and wide eyes gleaming from their round, chocolate-colored faces. "Li and I adopted our girls from Gambia after their parents were killed by a machete mob _for witchcraft!_ I'd be the first to proclaim myself a wizard proudly from the top of Big Ben, but not when it's gambling Justin's dream against Bubbe's reality."

He had known the children were from somewhere in Africa, but he had never heard the details before of how they had become orphaned, nor thought to ask, and it gave a surreal hint of the macabre to their innocent play. Neville swallowed hard, forcing himself not to give in to the first spell that came to his wand. Ironically, it was the thought of the delirious faces in that Muggle crowd that made it easiest to shake his head and hand the picture back, his voice resolute.

"I'm not going to pretend that doesn't scare me, Tony, because it does. I mean, I've got a family, of course it scares the hell out of me. But I hope you'll forgive me if I'm not making you any promises…or Justin, either. The vote on the Statute isn't until October, and especially right now, I just can't give it the kind of attention it needs. Not with what's going on with my parents, not with my financial situation," he pointed to the drawer where Anthony had stashed the scroll, "and not with these messages still coming every other day."

He wasn't sure what to expect, but relief was not it, yet that was unquestionably what came over his friend's face, easing the tension in his shoulders and bringing an easy laugh to his lips. "Neville, I am the last person you'll ever hear advising someone _not _to think for themselves."

Neville smiled back. "Now _that_ I can agree with completely." He took another drink of the tea, his mouth having become uncomfortably dry somewhere in the course of the unpleasant story, then nodded again to the drawer. "You said you had news on the –"

"Right!" Anthony dug among the piles on his desk, shaking his head irritably, though not, it seemed, at Neville. "I'm sorry."

He ran a quick hand through his thick, dark curls, but Neville saw that it was shaking a little when he found his reading glasses and slipped them on, and now that he looked more closely, there were dark circles under the other man's eyes, the faint lines at their corners distinctly visible rather than barely suggested. His own trained observer's eye scanned the room a second time, and the rubbish bin told a damning story of empty coffee cups, take-away containers, broken quills, wadded parchment, two bottles of painkillers, and a wad of blood-stained tissues. "Have _you _been sleeping, Tony?"

"Enough." The concern was dismissed as he found what he was looking for, pushing the glasses up higher on his nose as he consulted his notes. "I'm coming up more or less neutral on the pages themselves. The handwriting fits, the age of the paper, the ink, but all those can be faked or mimicked, especially since we're not talking about an ancient relic here. The real definitive charm for those would be content, and so far, although everything that I've been able to check out has done so, that's irrelevant, because the things I've been able to check have _been _verifiable because they're available. At the very least, we know someone's done their research big-time."

Neville considered pressing the point, then decided to let it go for now, though he resolved to keep a close eye on his friend. "You're still sure they couldn't be genuine?"

Anthony raised one eyebrow skeptically at him. "Would you believe in a brilliant forger with a mystery motivation before or after you believe that Mike, Terry, and/or Steve have been resurrected and decided to do this instead of telling us?"

"Point made."

"Where I have made a lot of progress is on how they're being sent." He tapped his notes, and there was the eagerness now in piecing together a proper mystery that Neville knew had kept him in the Department long after he had once intended to leave.

"Those strange ravens?"

"They're called Avatars. They're almost like a Patronus, but they are corporeal enough to perform a specific task for a wizard, usually delivering something. Very difficult, but very popular among court magicians in the Middle Ages because they're so showy, and they really made a good impression for bringing a message to your King or Lord."

Neville groaned despite himself, dropping his head into cupped hands. "Please, please tell me we're not dealing with another dark wizard with a fetish for ancient magic. I hated that last time, I really did."

"How about if I just promise you it's not dark magic?" Anthony smiled in wry sympathy.

"Is it always a raven?"

"That varied, but tended to be signature to the wizard. They've been almost unheard-of for the past five hundred years or so, but what brought it up for me was that there was one wizard who still used them right up until 1994…and he _did _use ravens."

Neville tilted his head curiously, surprised to hear such a relatively recent and precise date. "What happened in 1994?"

"Nicholas Flamel died."

The name took a lot of the fear out of the use of the medieval spell, and Anthony's enthusiasm for the puzzle was becoming infectious. "Did he have an apprentice of any kind?"

"The closest would have been Dumbledore himself."

"Who died in '97, so we're back to our top choices being dead people. Why did you need me?"

"You were the Commander of the DA, Neville. I need you to think back as hard as you can…did Mike or Terry or Steve say anything to you before they died that might suggest they'd had second thoughts about Operation Alexandria? Anything that suggested a guilty conscience, even?"

He considered it carefully, reviewing his memory for any odd behavior in the two Ravenclaw's last month, but he finally had to shake his head in defeat. "Mike started to talk to me a few times in the Room and stopped himself, but looking back in context, I'm ninety-nine percent sure he was fighting over whether he should tell me that Terry had a problem."

"The potion, you mean?"

"Yeah."

A strange, guarded look came over Anthony's face, and he set down the notes, removing his glasses to stare at Neville intently. "_Did _you know?"

"I had my suspicions," he admitted. "You couldn't not sometimes…he was unnaturally calm about too much. Maybe it makes me a poor friend and leader, but I let it go because I needed that mind of his too much to get too picky about what he had to swallow to be functional. We were all pushed too far." The last was said quietly, almost whispered in regret, and he changed the subject back to the more appealing present. "Have you asked Dumbledore's portrait about any of this?"

"No pun intended, but dead end there." Anthony let out a small snort of frustration. "There's only so much of a person you can capture in a painting, and he was so focused on what was needed to finish Riddle that beyond it, there's nothing more than what I could have gotten from a collection of his most famous quotes."

"Maybe if they keep coming, you'll find something," he suggested hopefully.

"I already have, but it's not about Dumbledore." Anthony made a face, then pulled another thick sheaf of parchment from the pile, but this was written not in his own somewhat messy scrawl, but the too-perfect lines of a Quick-Quotes Quill. "I'll be honest, I was feeling you out a bit asking about Terry."

"Feeling me out for what?"

"When I was at Skeeter's," he held up the parchment by the very tips of his fingers, as if it were something filthy, "I found her draft of the anniversary expose."

"We all knew about that," Neville frowned bemusedly, not understanding why Anthony should be so obviously upset by yet another ridiculous article from the notorious journalist. "She contacted everyone, trying to dig up something other than the same old speculation about Cecily's birthday vs. Ernie and Susan's wedding day and all that bollocks."

There was no such levity in the Auror's eyes, and Neville felt the first churnings of a sick suspicion in the pit of his stomach. "Someone didn't turn her down. Someone outsang the proverbial canary, and it's all here…every sordid little secret from Terry's addiction to the rumors about him and Mike to Jack's conquests, even your breakdown and Zach getting banned." He handed over the sheaf, his voice icy as he spelled out the unbelievable news. "We've got a rat in the DA."

He pushed it away without looking, refusing to read the evidence of such staggering betrayal for himself. "She must have gotten it from somewhere else! None of us would –"

"Someone _has_," Anthony interrupted, his own anger no longer entirely hidden. "And it's one of us who had to run to the Room, because it talks about stuff that happened in there."

He didn't want to look, but he forced his eyes down to the neat lines of script, and the sick feeling only deepened as he flipped through the pages. Anthony was right. It was all there, everything he had said and more…Dennis' silence, Lavender's beatings at the hands of Crabbe and Goyle, their forced recruitment of Draco into the DA, even his brief relationship with Parvati at the beginning of the year retold in a way that made him look like an ego-driven young Lothario flitting between dalliances with the witches under his command. He shuddered, dropping it onto the desk. "What are you going to do with it?"

"Give you a copy and a chance," Anthony said quietly.

"Chance for what?"

"To be the Commander again." He waved his wand, duplicating the draft of the article and putting the original back in its place as he handed the copy across to Neville. "A chance to find out who did this yourself and bring them to me rather than have me go hunting among our comrades as an Auror."

Neville didn't want to take it, and he rolled it as tightly as possible, as if he could crush the words away before he had to put it in his pocket. "Can't you just burn it?"

"It's evidence, Neville, you know I can't," Anthony shook his head gently. "It's a possible motive in a murder, and a damned good one."

He sighed, then drew back his shoulders, dismissing the feelings of betrayal beneath the necessity of interrogating friends that he would have only moments ago sworn could never, would never sell each other out for any price. "How long can you give me?"

"Two days, maybe three."

Neville got to his feet, shaking Anthony's hand firmly. "You'll concentrate on the messages in that time, then? Those could be a motive too, you know. Don't give them up just because of –"

"I'm not giving up! I'm going to –"

Anthony was cut-off mid sentence as a bright silver flash swept into the office, quickly resolving itself into the figure of a stag. The Patronus seemed agitated, rearing up on its hind legs briefly and shaking its antlers before it spoke in Harry's voice, the professional words and tone unable to fully hide the horror and shock that he had been clearly struggling to control. "Auror Goldstein, report to St. Mungo's Long-Term Resident Ward immediately! We've had two more homicides."

There was a moment, a single instant of frozen time where he and Anthony simply stared at one another across the desk. The Patronus, its message delivered, had vanished, but its words echoed through his skull, each syllable punctuated on heartbeats ratcheting higher. _Two hom i cides. Two hom i cides. Twohomicides. Twohomicidestwohomicides._

They both knew.

Anthony was the first to move, the legs of the chair screeching protest against the stone floor as he pushed back and got to his feet, wand already out, already turning in place, and he didn't even try to stop Neville from following. Not that it would have mattered. There was no protest, no act of force, even, that could have held him back, and he spun so quickly he almost lost his balance, any extra focus entirely unnecessary, because he was already there, had been yanked by the heart to the ward so strongly that the physical Apparation was nothing but a detail.

It was impossible to Apparate directly into the ward itself, but they appeared in the hallway immediately outside, and Harry was already there. His deep green robes were almost glowing against the drab surroundings, or maybe it was just that everything had taken on the vivid wash of adrenaline, colors radiant and details cracking so crisp that he could see each crease in Harry's dry, pale lips as they parted in shock to see him there. "Neville! What are you – "

He didn't feel anything, but the voice he heard was deep and sharp with danger, and it was as if he were standing far down the corridor, watching himself stride forward to stand toe-to-toe against the other wizard, using his height to intimidate in a way that he wanted to protest was not like himself at all, one work-rough hand grabbing a twist of green wool and yanking Harry to tip-toe. "Two questions, yes or no answers."

Harry twisted away, taking a step back, and though he didn't seem frightened or even startled any more, he still raised both hands in placation. "Neville, please –"

"The homicides," Neville didn't close on him again, but his wand jabbed towards the closed door like the cast of an Unforgivable. "Are they my parents? Yes or no."

Silence hung over a breath of hesitation, then Harry nodded, closing his eyes against the truth. "Yes."

"Do you have the bastard who did it?"

"No."

He had known both answers already, but it was still like a punch to the gut to hear them, and he staggered back half a step before shaking his head, piling the necessary stone against the wall the stood between himself and any real reaction to the news. "Thank you, that's all I needed. I'll be back later."

Neville had held up beneath the loss of his grandmother out of decorum, out of necessity, out of too much else to do, but this time it was different. This wasn't the composure of responsibility, it was the callous desperation of active battle, the heartless triage that had turned him dry-eyed from Michael's broken corpse at the gates and now turned him equally easily from the door of the ward. Another twist, not bothering to note a reaction – if there had been any – from either Auror or to ask more questions whose answers wouldn't matter yet anyway.

The _Cauldron _was still dim, the shutters still closed, but Hannah was preparing the main dining room for what should have been reopening the next day. She had been using her wand to replace the tables and chairs, giving them unnecessary flourishes and twists in the air to make Ernie laugh and clap his hands from the sling at her hip. At the sound of his Apparation, she jumped a little, the leg of the chair she had suspended almost scraping a tabletop, and she put it down quickly. "Is that you, love? How did things go with – "

The smile collapsed from her face as she saw him, and her back stiffened, her free hand scooping around her son to draw him closer in unconscious protectiveness. "Neville, what's going on?"

"We're not opening tomorrow." He jabbed his wand past her, throwing iron bars over the simple latches that held the windows. "Call the Dunstans on the Galleon, get the twins back here _now, _and start packing." The stones of the mantle warped and swelled, shutting off the fireplace. "I'll be back as fast as I can, but in the meantime, seal this place up like a Goblin's purse, trust _no one, _and when I return, you make damned sure it's really me before you put your wand down."

She didn't argue, the charmed coin already in her hand so fast it seemed like magic itself. "Is it something from the messages?"

"My parents have just been murdered, Hannah," he answered, wasting no time in blunting the truth. "You and the kids are going to the Loch, and you're going to stay there until this person's caught."

Her mouth opened in an instant's horror, then she shook her head, her green eyes flashing as her shoulders drew back defiantly. "I'm not just going into hiding and leaving you if there's someone out to hurt you!"

Neville pushed open the swinging door to the kitchen, reaching through to bar the outer door beyond. "I don't know if they're out to hurt _me_, but they're definitely doing a good job on the ones I love."

"I'm not helpless, Neville." She sounded a little offended, but also fiercely stubborn, and he stopped, taking a deep breath, even as instinct howled that there was no time to be lost in argument.

She was standing right behind him, and he reached out, taking her gently by the shoulder with one hand as he ran his other over Ernie's soft, downy head. Even at only thirteen months old, he seemed to have realized that something was wrong, but he wasn't crying yet, the wide, round eyes worried yet trusting as they looked up curiously at his father. "Da?"

Neville swallowed hard, unable to look away from that complete, open innocence that was so terrifying. Walking so well, starting to talk, but Merlin, he was a _baby_ still, and it should have been so impossible that anything in the world could want to hurt him. He forced his tone softer, a smile to his mouth against the clutching fear as the little hand wrapped his finger, the whole width of it only closing over the second knuckle. "I know you're not, but this little fellow is, and so are the twins, and that's not even considering that your most powerful magic isn't that predictable when you're pregnant."

He met her eyes now, his own pleading openly. "Hannah, for Merlin's sake, if it were still just us, I'd have nothing but pity for whoever thought you _were _helpless, but it's not, and this is someone who could look at my mother and cast the Killing Curse. I can't wager they couldn't do the same with a child, and it's going to be mad enough uprooting them and sending them away for I don't even know how long." It almost cracked the wall to say it, and he had to pull his hand from the soft clasp before it began to shake. "They need their Mummy even more than I need my wife."

Maybe it was several minutes, maybe less than a second, but at last, Hannah nodded. "I'll be ready in half an hour." She started towards the stairs that led to their flat, then stopped, twisting back with one hand already on the knob and something between fear and fearlessness in her eyes. "Neville…we've been out of school a long time."

He had been about to leave as well, but that stopped him, his head tilting in confusion. "What?"

"I don't care where you were sorted, don't do anything stupid. They need their Daddy, too."

OOO

Susan hadn't known where exactly he would be, but she had been able to point him in the right direction, and it didn't take long to find Seamus on the jagged hillside, the hard lines and bright tattoos of his shoulders incongruous against the soft white of the lamb slung across them. "I thought I'd be seein' ya soon, Fearless Leader." The familiar brogue called cheerfully over the field before Neville thought he'd even been spotted, and his friend knelt to set the lamb among the rest of the flock. "This little bloke wandered off, he did. How's –"

Neville had no time nor patience for greetings. "When I found you in the Room of Requirement after the battle, what kind of Firewhiskey were you drinking? Ogdens or MacLeods?"

Seamus froze half-risen from the crouch, his forehead creasing into a frown as Neville closed the last of the distance between them. "Neither; I were drinkin' Muggle stuff…Bushmills or Mike Collins, I think it were, but I ain't too sure on account o' that I weren't sippin' at it." He stood up the rest of the way now, crossing his arms. "Why the trick question?"

"You're you, then."

"As I's ever, for all the queer comfort that's been."

" Then I just want to know something, and Seamus, you're my best friend. We've been through more madness together than three lifetimes should ever have, and you know I've forgiven you for some outrageous things, so you have got to be honest with me now." So strange how at times like this, the mind could weave answers that the clarity of sanity could have taken weeks to puzzle out, but those answers didn't matter nearly as much as they would have half an hour ago. What mattered wasn't the part of his friend that could play fast and loose with morality others deemed absolute, but the deeper part marked in the ugly gnarl of a ritual blade's scar across his chest.

Despite the intense sincerity of what he had just said, the frown became a lopsided grin, and Seamus laughed as he swept back a loose wisp of hair from his forehead with a wink. "Ain't never slept with your wife, I've not, though I can't be sayin' I ain't never looked. Glorious set she's got herself, as fair ya know."

"Seamus, this is serious." He pulled the roll of parchment Anthony had given him from his pocket, holding it up so that the green ink glittered faintly in the bright sunlight. "What did Rita have over you?"

"Rita Skeeter?" The look of bafflement was so transparent it could have been genuine. "Ain't spoken t'that bint since…can't even remember!"

The edge of his temper was closer than he had realized, and Neville could feel his face heat as he barely kept from grabbing Seamus by both shoulders and shaking the cheeky glimmer from the blue eyes. "I asked you to be honest with me, damn it!"

At last it seemed to break through just how serious this was, and all hint of levity vanished, replaced by a rising defensiveness. "I am!"

"Did you kill someone else," Neville pressed relentlessly, "someone while you were drunk, some idiot who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time in a pub fight? Have you got another kid out there? Was there something she dug up about you with one of the Muggle gangs while you were stalking one of your victims? I know that you've just gotten a life back, if she was trying to hang you between Azkaban and selling out old secrets of dead people –"

"Ain't sold out no one, Fearless Leader!" Seamus swatted aside the parchment that had been pushed towards his face, scowling darkly. There was a flash of his own infamous temper in his voice now, and any other time, Neville would have heeded the warning. "Have ya lost your mind? I don't follow a word o' it, and if you're thinkin' it were I what killed her -"

"I don't bloody care if you did," he snapped back, "but see if this jogs your memory." Neville unrolled the parchment, paging through quickly and folding it messily back to thrust forward the relevant section, his finger slamming down on the lines of script. "Particularly right here, because there's only two people who know Lavender spent that night in your bed, and they're both standing on this hill."

There was silence as Seamus snatched the pages away and read, but though his eyes widened, it looked more like disgust than guilt. "Feckin' hell."

"Eloquent as ever."

A few more seconds of silent reading, then Seamus wadded the draft in his fists, tossing it down to the grass at their feet like common rubbish, and there was both comprehension and a coldly wounded pride in his face as he looked up into Neville's eyes unflinchingly. "I don't know how she done it, but I swear, I swear on me son's honor that I didn't know shite-all 'til ya just now showed me."

He wanted to…no. Neville took a long, deep breath, running his hands through his hair as he fought to try and stay rational here. Just because he had _an _answer didn't mean he knew anything, and maybe he'd been unfair. Maybe there was another answer to _why _or _how_, even if not to _who. _"Do you have any missing time? Has she been to the Loch? Did you talk to her, even for a little while, when she could have put you under the Imperius or slipped you some Veritaserum?"

Seamus shook his head immediately. "This place don't allow no one in what ain't invited, and ya know how Sue feels 'bout that bitch after what she's done on her and Ernie…she ain't been here, and I ain't been off in five years 'cepts to the memorial and with Hermione this mornin'. I'm a feckin' prisoner, case ya've forgotten."

There was something else. Maybe no one else would have known, but he knew the man standing in front of him now better than anyone else in the world. He had been inside his mind, even, inside his memories, and to hell and back didn't begin to cover what they had endured together. They had seen each other at their most broken and at their strongest, through absolute defeat and crowning, Godlike glory. And there was a lie between them now. Something held back. Something unsaid. It was there in Seamus' eyes, no matter how much he hated it.

All anger and accusatory bravado fell away, and although he did reach out now, it wasn't to shake or strike, but to grip both shoulders in a desperate whisper. "_Please_, Seamus, for the love of friendship…I _don't care _why you did it. Just tell me. Tell me the truth. I don't want to stop trusting you, and not today, _please _not today."

Seamus shook his head slowly, and though the lie was still there, the regret over it was real as he peeled the hands away. "If 'tis truth ya want from me, can't nothin' else I say, Fearless Leader."

"Damn you." Neville spat the reply at him, the bitterness so chokingly cruel in his throat that he couldn't even find words that would be stronger when the sudden hate already was so much. He turned away, pushing through the flock in search of clear ground to Apparate. He didn't look back, and he knew he never would again. "Damn you straight back to hell for every time I thought you'd left it."

OOO

"I nearly jumped out of my seat when that thing went off in my pocket, Neville. Parliament's in session…do you know how risky it is for me to Apparate out of the washroom?" Justin's face was flushed as he appeared in the Westminster alleyway, and he crossed his arms over the perfectly cut suit jacket with a glare that demanded the other wizard produce a very good reason before an unspoken count of three or he would be leaving.

"Sorry, but I didn't know another way to reach you in the Muggle world," Neville said sharply. "I couldn't send an owl or –"

"No, no, I'm sorry." The disapproval was gone, replaced with the slightest hint of panic beneath the reserve as Justin waved his explanation away. "Do tell me, what's the emergency? Is Hannah all right?"

"As far as I know," he allowed, "but my parents aren't."

"Your mother, then –"

"They were killed this afternoon."

He hadn't known quite what to expect when he dropped the news, but there was something chilling in how little reaction there actually was. No gasp, no sudden anger or fear, just the slightest widening of the grey eyes, as if he had told him the Cannons were considered a decent bet for this year's Championship. "Good God."

"Someone's going after my family, Justin." Neville matched the calm with his own steady determination. "First Gran, now them…I've got to get Hannah and the babies to safety."

Justin nodded in agreement, pressing his fingers against his mouth in thought before he replied. "Ernie's farm, couldn't you send them there?"

"I can't trust Seamus right now – " He held up a hand, cutting off the question before it could be asked. "I can't tell you why, but it's not an option. I don't know what's going on with him, and frankly," he chuckled frigidly, "at least I know if you're going to stab me in the back what it would be about and why, and I know that you'd never let anything happen to Hannah."

It was still almost impossible to read anything at all in the politician's face, but there was a flicker of something through his eyes that seemed like the same shadow he saw in Hannah's when the old Hufflepuff Trio was mentioned. "I'd die for her as surely as you would, my dear man."

Neville smiled thinly, discovering it was easier than he had thought to push down the pride that was really nothing in the face of this. "I know, and that's why I'm going to have to ask you for an absolutely colossal favor."

"Anything."

"Hide her, Justin. I know you want our worlds brought together, but they aren't yet, and whoever's doing this is magical. I need you to take my family and hide them somewhere deep, deep in your world where a wizard wouldn't ever think to look for them."

"I…." He wasn't rattled, that would be the wrong word, but he did seem rather intimidated, whether by the task or the trust or both. Justin let out a long, deep breath, drawing his wand from inside his sleeve and turning it over slowly, contemplatively in his hands, as if studying its lines against the tailored cuffs and manicured hands would offer a revelation. "That's not going to be easy, Neville. She's a witch, and the children…have they manifested yet?"

"Not yet." Neville offered, and really, now was not the time to add _but at their age, probably any day now._ "Find an excuse, anything you have to do…you've got power, connections, plenty of money…you gad around with _Princes_ on weekends. Don't tell me it's impossible!"

"I said nothing of the kind," Justin countered quickly. "But I can't just set her up as a typist in Bristol; she'd be lost the first time I put her on a bus."

"But you _can_ do it."

Another long pause, and Justin's eyes still hadn't lifted from the wand. "How long are we looking at, here? Overnight? A few days? A week?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "Until we catch whoever's doing this."

"And if it's months?" Now his eyes did raise, and Neville felt a surprising sense of relief as he recognized that it was the rationality not of someone who didn't care, but who like himself, cared so much they couldn't feel. "I'm an Auror myself, Neville, Reserve or no. Would you want to be separated from them for months if the crime doesn't solve itself neatly and quickly…or at all?"

"If it's months," Neville said with a dark, wry humor, "then you're going to have an extra person to hide."

"She's with child?"

It hadn't occurred to him that Hannah wouldn't have told her friend yet, but it was a moot point now, and best that he knew anyway. "About seven or eight weeks, near as we can figure."

"Congratulations."

"Thanks."

Neville paused in the wake of the empty, rote platitudes, forcing himself to actually consider the question as baldly as it had been asked. It wasn't easy, but the answer, oddly, was. "If it's months, I can deal with it. I _can't_ deal with having to be afraid for their lives. If we don't catch…we'll cast that spell later, but I'd probably run with them rather than bring them back."

The answer seemed to satisfy Justin, and he nodded again, replacing the wand inside his sleeve and consulting the Blackberry he pulled instead from his inner breast pocket. "You'll have to give me some time."

"Gran was less than a week ago," Neville warned. "There've been four others since, including both my parents today. I don't know how much time you can have."

"An hour?"

Part of him wanted to demand _now_, but an hour was more than reasonable, and he bit back the ridiculous irritation as he gestured at the device in Justin's hand. "How do I reach you since I can't talk to that thing? Is the Galleon all right?"

"That'll do for now," Justin said distractedly. He had the Blackberry in one palm, what looked like a tiny silver wand in his other tapping the glass rapidly, and there was a strange kind of comfort in the very alienness of whatever he was so busily doing. "Actually, I'll send the message to you when I'm ready, and then you can allow me to Apparate in so that I can explain the details to yourself and Hannah."

"How did you know we've locked down the _Cauldron?"_

The little wand paused, and Justin looked up, one eyebrow lifted in amusement. "When the boogeyman is at the door, old chum, common sense would suggest you throw the latch."

"I'm sorry," Neville spread his hands, smiling tightly. "I'm a little paranoid at the moment."

"No offense taken in the slightest." The Blackberry beeped, and Justin made a small noise of satisfaction, slipping the wand into a slot on the side and returning it to his pocket. "I'll get on it straightaway. And you?"

"I'll be helping Hannah pack and then finding Harry."

"To see if he's made any progress?"

"To renew my commission with the Aurors. Looks like you'll not be the only one with two jobs."

OOO

The bags were stacked by the door, already charmed and reduced to fit into Hannah's handbag, and it was a small but endlessly relieving miracle that the twins had not been outraged to have their outing to the zoo cut short. Instead, Peggy looked only vaguely confused as she pulled at the end of her pigtail, her bowed mouth pursed in concentration. "And you gonna come a day and tomorrow, Daddy?"

Neville got down on his knees to look her directly in the eyes, and it was almost frightening how easy the lie came to his tone and his smile, even though his words were the most technical truth. "No, Meg-a-Peg, this is a _special _holiday, just with Mummy."

"But you'll be a special holiday next time?"

He reached out, pulling the pigtail from her mouth gently where she had begun to chew it. "Of course I will."

"We get ice cream?" Trevor asked intently, as if this were the entire deciding factor – not the presence or absence of a mere parent – that would determine whether the trip were worth taking without fuss. "There was ice cream, we were gonna get ice cream at zoo."

"Absolutely." Neville nodded solemnly, then looked up to the other man standing in the corner, watching the whole thing with the distantly fascinated smile of someone who didn't understand at all. "Uncle Justin will make certain you get ice cream, won't he?"

Justin nodded, and for once, the perpetual etiquette gave a satisfyingly profound undercurrent to the promise. "Any kind you want."

Trevor was not entirely satisfied, and he put both hands on his hips, glowering suspiciously. "Two scoops?"

"One scoop," Neville amended quickly. "You don't want a sick belly."

"Big scoop?"

"The young lad's a keen negotiator!" Justin laughed, dropping to one knee to ruffle the boy's head with an indulgent glance at Neville. "A big scoop it is."

They were interrupted by the sound of footsteps, and he turned to see his wife making her final trip down the stairs from their flat. It didn't seem possible with less than five hands, but she managed to balance Ernie and three bags, buttoning her traveling robes over what he knew was her only Muggle-style dress that she usually wore to visit Justin on more pleasant occasions. "I think I have everything, but I had to hurry. If I've forgotten anything, will Neville be able to send it on?"

"I'm afraid not," Justin shook his head regretfully, using his wand to take the bags from her and add them to the pile. "But don't worry, Hannah, you should be able to get what you need in Muggle stores."

"What about using the Muggle post?"

He hesitated a moment, looking between the couple as if afraid of how the news would be received. "The thing is, I'm not going to know your ultimate destination any more than Neville shall." Justin held up a hand quickly before Hannah could voice her obvious protest, his expression grimly matter-of-fact. "It's for your own safety; no one can extract from either of us what we don't know."

Neville didn't like the idea of not knowing, not at all, but although he wasn't sure whether he could afford to argue with someone who was doing him such a favor, Hannah had no such reservations with her old friend. "How sure are you that you can trust this person?"

"I'd trust Gordon with my life," Justin replied forcefully. "Indeed, I have on more than one occasion. He's as good and honorable an officer and a gentleman as you could ever hope to meet on either side of the statute. He'll be supplying you with means to contact _me _later, but five minutes after we're on the other side of the charms, you'll be with him, and then we can probably expect at least a full day's travel."

Hannah seemed to consider this, then gestured with her wand at the pile of shrunken luggage, levitating it a few inches into the air and turning it slowly as if to make a point. "Does he know I'm a witch?"

"I've…" There was a brief hesitation, and the rest of the answer was obviously carefully phrased, even in light of the other man's usually precise speech. "I have told him that you are members of a very isolated religious minority, and that you do use the terms witches and wizards – I knew the children couldn't be counted on to keep their tongues – and that you have been targeted by terrorist fundamentalists. He also knows that you have no familiarity with technology in any way, but…." He let out a sigh, flicking his own wand to break Hannah's spell and settle the bags to the floor again. "No, he has no idea you can literally cast magic, nor that I am a wizard myself."

"You make me sound like a lunatic," Hannah scowled.

"The Muggle group I compared you to for him – the Amish – is really quite respected. And I had to say something." Justin's tone was apologetic but resolute. "You _aren't _going to just slip into that world easily."

She was not appeased, though she hadn't stopped her preparations to leave. Ernie had now been buttoned into his own traveling robes, the little tweed cap he'd inherited from his older brother snugged onto his dark hair, and she glanced up from where she was maneuvering one very wiggly foot into a shoe. "I'll manage. I'm pretty resilient."

"You are," Neville agreed.

"And I've got some rules of my own."

Justin hadn't been expecting that, and he shifted uncomfortably, running the wand between his fingers. "Oh?"

"If this is really that serious, I'm not coming back until I've seen the front page of the _Prophet_ where the killer was captured, plus two letters from friends I can verify saying the same thing." The second shoe was on now, and she shifted Ernie to her other hip as she knelt to double-check each bag. "I'm not getting lured back by some madman impersonating one of you, and you boys had better be ready to answer the most personally detailed questions I can think of any time you want communication at all."

Her smile on the last bit had been distinctly cheeky, and despite the dire situation, Neville couldn't help but laugh. "This, Justin, is why I am madly in love with this witch."

Peggy had joined her mother in perusing the bags, and now she held one up with a cry of alarm, turning it upside down and sending a cascade of nappies, toys, and little robes to immediately swell to their full size in a heap on the floor. "Where's Dragon? D'you get Dragon, Mummy? Can't go without Dragon!"

"Dragon's right here, Peggy." Hannah sighed, pulling the well-worn stuffed toy from the pocket of her robes and showing it to the girl, who showed no remorse for her mess, merely nodding in satisfaction.

"Ernie yells without Dragon," she explained helpfully.

"That's a very good sister to think of it, then," Justin agreed, kneeling to pat the little witch on the shoulder as her parents got everything back into the bag.

"Yeah."

There was a tug on his sleeve, and Neville looked up to see Trevor leaning over him with a desperate look in his eyes, biting his lower lip and squirming ominously. "I gotta potty."

He and Hannah exchanged a quick glance, and she left him to re-pack the rest of the baby's things, smoothing her robes as she stood, Trevor having already progressed from squirming to hopping. "All right, but then we have to go. This is a big hurry surprise holiday, and we don't want to miss it." As much as he was going to miss them, Neville realized, he would not be particularly distressed if the boy was able to use the toilet without requiring an audience by the time they came back.

She started towards the public toilets at the back of the pub – they were closer than their private bathroom – then paused, turning back to hold Ernie out to him. "Neville, would you just take –"

"Please." He took his son eagerly, not wanting to miss the chance in their dwindling time and abandoning the last few items for later. Ernie squawked indignantly, reaching for his mother, but Neville turned him around so that he couldn't see her go, sweeping him high into the air and around until he was shrieking with laughter. "Hey there, are we excited? Yes, we're going on holiday! Ernie's first holiday!" He dropped his head to nuzzle the round belly through the robes, prompting more laughter. Such a wonderful sound, a baby's laugh. Nothing like it. "So exciting! Ernie's…."

Seven. Neville trailed off, not even realizing he'd stopped as he stared into Ernie's open mouth. Four teeth on the bottom, but _three _on the top. Well, not quite three yet, but that thin white line hadn't been there yesterday, he was sure of it. Now that he wasn't being played with, Ernie tried to wiggle down, but if he let him go, he'd be off running who-knew-where in the wink of an eye, and hadn't it been _weeks _ago that he was still barely managing a few steps without falling on his bum? So fast, it all happened so fast, and if he couldn't solve this quickly, how much would he -

"You okay, Daddy?" Peggy was putting the last of her mess away herself, but there was a disturbingly adult frown in her eyes as she stared questioningly up at him. "You can come if you wanna. I'll share my holiday."

"Thank you, love, but next time." Neville conjured a swirl of sparks to distract Ernie from his efforts to get away while he smiled at his daughter as reassuringly as he could manage. "Sometimes, we have to wait for things if they're not ours."

She pushed the bag back among the others, but the frown was still there as she came over to him, reaching up to take his hand. "It makes you sad."

"A little," he admitted. For all that she could be willful, Peggy had such a gentle heart – Hannah said it was his, but he disagreed – and she was stroking the back of his hand, running tiny, perfect fingers over the rough map of calluses, veins, and scars in a way that made it hard to swallow. "It's called patience, sweetheart. We've talked about patience."

Peggy made a face, her button nose wrinkling. "Patience is dumb."

He could hear Justin clear his throat in what he knew was the suppression of a chuckle, and though he couldn't blame him, nor could he share it. "A lot of life is dumb for big people, but that's just how it is."

She nodded sagely, then pointed back to the luggage, and her voice dropped to a scandalized, eager tattletale's whisper. "Mummy didn't bring extra robes for Baby!"

"Ernie's bag is right there," he reminded her. "You dumped it."

"_My _Baby, Daddy!"

"I'm sure she did," Neville assured her hastily, not wanting another rummage. "And if not, you can go to the special Muggle store and get some."

"Pink ones?" Peggy's eyes narrowed warily at Justin, as if finding it hard to believe that a silly Muggle store could ever provide for her precious doll.

Justin, however, nodded in absolute confidence. "Pink ones, and ruffled ones, and ones with sparkles, and ones with fairy wings and ones for you that match."

He could see the wide-eyed delight that had replaced suspicion on Peggy's face, and Neville gave Justin what he hoped was an appropriately parental look of warning. "Don't spoil her, mate."

His smile was one of boyish mischief, but the other man's eyes were sincere and deep with sympathy as he made a courtly, sweeping bow. "I consider it my highest duty, dear sir, to see that she is not only well, but dreadfully spoiled by the time I return her to you."

Neville turned his hand beneath Peggy's, wrapping hers within his grip as if he could pretend for a few more seconds that her father would be enough to protect her. "As long as she's kept safe. As long as they all are."

"Upon my most sacred word." It could have been sarcastic, as the previous remark had been, but there was no joking now, and they both knew it.

"You have no idea how closely I'll be holding you to that."

Justin didn't flinch beneath the chill of his reply, but the moment was broken as Hannah and Trevor returned. "Are you sure you don't need to potty, Peggy?"

She shook her head as if the question were absurd. "Went already."

All three adults knew that meant little to nothing, and Hannah held her daughter's gaze as she took Ernie back. "How long until we'll be near bathrooms, Justin?"

"Oh, that shouldn't be a problem."

"All right, then, we can wait for now." Hannah took a deep breath, and it seemed for a fleeting instant that she might cry, but then she shook herself and summoned the luggage into her handbag, scooting Trevor along with a gentle nudge in the back. "Say goodbye to Daddy."

Trevor didn't move, his eyes widening as it slowly dawned on him that they were, as a matter of fact leaving _without _Neville, and he acted quickly, though only half to spare his son. If they cried, if they begged him to come….

He crouched low, throwing both arms open with a broad smile. "C'mon, doublehuggles!" The twins' faces lit immediately, and he caught them as they flung themselves into his arms, wrapping them tight and sweeping them both off their feet. "Up!"

"Neville, they're too – " Hannah's hand flew to her mouth, and she looked away with a half-reproachful sigh. "Oh, you're going to hurt yourself."

"They're not too big!" All right, so that was not, perhaps, entirely the truth. There was a reason, he remembered now, that he hadn't picked them both up like this in the matched one-arm embraces in what had honestly been almost a year, but he didn't care. A sore back the next day - even, at worst, some strained muscles - was nothing compared to getting to hold them both like this, to have all four little arms around his neck, to be nearly buried under warm, soft, giggling _children_ that smelled so sweet and looked so much like their mother but had his coloring and oh were _theirs_, their own most perfect magic.

He spun them in a full circle, and maybe it was just the fear of knowing what would come when he put them down, but they seemed to become lighter in his arms, and he drew them in all the closer. "Never too big, they're my babies!"

"Not a baby!"

"No, of course not, Trev. You're my grand great big wizard, aren't you?" He bonked Trevor teasingly on the forehead with his nose, winking at him. "Going to take care of your Mummy and sister and Ernie?"

"Uh-huh."

"And you'll be as sweet a witch as your Mummy and a big lady?" His fingers wiggled, tickling Peggy's ribs until she managed to giggle her agreement, but he could see Justin beyond them, the polite but insistent display of his wristwatch, and he sighed. "Okay, then, down we go."

The twins scampered away, running to the door to each grab one of Justin's offered hands, and Neville could barely keep his voice steady as he turned to Hannah, wagging a finger in mock-sternness at Ernie. "And you…just don't put anything in your nose if Mummy can't use her wand and we'll be good, all right? And don't go growing or learning new words or anything mad like that while I'm not looking."

"Da."

"I'll hold that as your solemn oath, young man."

Ernie held out both arms, leaning forward and grinning. Seven teeth. "Da da da da up!"

He started to do it, already had one hand on the boy to take him and hold him and play with him one last time as he had with the twins, but Hannah took the smallest step back, just enough to break the contact. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes shining, but her jaw set. "Neville…."

It was a warning, a promise, a farewell, and a declaration of love among a hundred other things, and he heard them all, even though they couldn't be said in front of little people with inconvenient talents for knowing just when they shouldn't understand. "Take care." He kissed her over Ernie's head, and somehow he didn't regret that it couldn't be more passionate, that it couldn't linger, because they were both already hanging on so thinly.

And then Hannah and Ernie were with the others, and the door was open, and they should have gone at once, but they had at least a few more seconds while Justin left the twins behind to check that the coast was clear. Neville stayed by the stairs as if his feet had grown roots into the oak planking, not trusting himself to move beyond waving to them. "Have a good time. Be good. I love you all so, so much."

Justin was back already, taking Peggy and Trevor's hands with a thin, tight smile. "It won't be too long, Neville."

"Just stay safe. That's all I need to know. Stay _safe_."

A last glimpse of his wife through the closing door. "I will."

"Goodbye."

And that was it. They were gone.

He had…he had many things to do. Many. Very many. Things. Things that were important, and he had to…do…things if he wanted them back. Many important things.

But he couldn't breathe. It was as if the sound of the latch clicking had been the sound of something cracking, and it must have been something that mattered a lot, because without it he couldn't stand. Without it, his knees gave way and he sagged to the floor, and his mouth felt dry, his insides cold and hollow, and it was so hard to breathe that it was all he could do. Put his spinning head between his knees and hold it in both hands and just try to breathe.

Tiny hands smoothed his hair, and for a heart-stopping moment, he thought they were back, but when he looked up, it wasn't the rosy-cheeked face of a child, but the wrinkled gray visage of an elderly house-elf that met his eyes. "Master Neville loves his family very much, doesn't he?"

He managed to pull a deep, shuddering breath that only half-choked to a sob. "So much, Mimsy. I'm going to miss them so much."

"Does Master Neville love his Pub Trollop as much as Master Frank loved Mistress Alice?"

"Every bit. And I don't wonder any more why they did what they did to protect me. It wouldn't even be a choice."

Mimsy's enormous eyes squeezed shut with a pained shiver, and he felt a twinge of regret for bringing it up, remembering too late that she had been the one who found him in his parents house after the Aurors had come and gone, only her magic able to hear him crying behind the spells that had hidden him from the Death Eaters. But she shook it off, still petting his head maternally. "The little one, Ernest Longbottom, he looks most like Master did when he was small. The bigger ones, though, they have the Pub Trollop's nose."

His chest still ached, his hands were still shaking where they clutched his knees, but he still smiled. "And that, Mimsy, is a wonderful thing."

"Mimsy does not think so," she replied defensively. "Master Neville's nose is Master Frank's nose, and Mimsy _loved _poor Master Frank."

"Do you know…." He hesitated, selfishly not wanting to break the awful news to her. "About him? About him and Mistress Alice today?"

"Did he have a fit, Master Neville?" the elf inquired innocently. "Mistress was supposed to visit them yesterday, and he can be most upset when things are not in their way."

"I…." No, he couldn't do it. Maybe it made him weak, but he knew she would go off her head when she learned his parents had been murdered, and he just couldn't deal with that now. Instead he forced himself to his feet, forced his voice to be steady again. "I don't think I can stay here tonight. Mimsy, I want you to go back to Willow Creek. Make some tea, strong coffee, and some sandwiches, maybe some cakes. I'll be asking Harry Potter to come over tonight so we can talk about very important things, and if he needed to bring Ginny and the boys with him, would you mind?"

"Of course not!" Mimsy brightened at once with her new task, primly adjusting her doily and brushing away imaginary specks of dust from the age-yellowed lace. "There are still very many toys in the attic. And should I get Master Neville's old room ready? Fresh sheets on the bed?"

"Probably a good idea," Neville agreed numbly. "Oh, and his oldest, James, _hates_ onions, so…."

"Right away, and no onions in anything! Mimsy can take excellent care of Master Neville and his friends! Mimsy is a superb _house_-elf!" She was beaming with pride now, and the last traces of guilt for his omission faded as she dipped him a deep curtsy, then snapped her fingers, vanishing with an explosive crack that echoed through the too-silent pub.

For the most part, he knew that she would make sure he had what he needed. He didn't really need to pack, but Neville knew he would still need clothes for the next day, pajamas, and he should probably see where Hannah had put his old Auror's uniform -

There was someone there. He hadn't seen anything, hadn't heard anything, but a sixth sense pricked the hairs on the back of his neck, and he spun towards the deep shadows beneath the stairs where travelers left their brooms, his wand in his hand before he even realized he'd drawn it. The flash of scarlet was as bright and quick as a bolt of summer lightning, but it careened away, bounced snapping off of a magical barrier that was wrong and familiar at the same time.

"If you're plannin' to be talkin' to Harry 'bout how I betrayed the DA, I'd be suggestin' ya wait."

It was said completely calmly, and there was no alarm on the freckled, blue-patterned features of the man who stepped forward now, but his hand was still upraised from the shield, and Neville could see the ghost of golden flames that cast no light licking faint magic along his fingers.

"SEAMUS! How the –"

Seamus shrugged, leaning easily against the wall of the hallway as if there were nothing at all remarkable about his visit. "Farm's passin' to Susan until's such time Cecily's o' age. Been ten months married to her, I have, and so that's ten months that it's been mine's much as hers."

The loophole – so obvious that they had all been blind to it – stunned him, and the realization that _this _was the other man's secret was nothing at all of the comfort it should have been. "Then…."

"Aye, ya let me take the bars off the cage without knowin'."

If he had thought he had felt betrayed by his friend before, it was nothing compared to the skin-crawling rage that surged through him now. "You disgusting son of a bitch, I can't believe you –"

"If I'd been playin' her for me freedom, I'd not've stayed after, now would I?" Seamus snapped caustically, and the cool veneer had gone completely, revealing his own livid temper. "For all's little ya think o' me, I don't need more than me word to keep me there until I's let go!"

"And yet you're standing here, and through –"

"All the spells we learned in the DA to seal a place."

The slight, taunting air of that reminder was too much, and it wasn't any DA magic that channeled through the cherry and unicorn now. The flare of light was green, but both richer and brighter than the glare of a Killing Curse, so potent that it was barely caught on a shield that had to blaze white-gold to be enough. Then the wood was hot, so hot that he had to let it go before it burst into flames in his hand, and it was charcoal by the time it hit the floor, Seamus' eyes glowing unnaturally as he smiled his challenge. "Ya wanna do this?"

He didn't need the wand for this kind of magic, but it was making a point to keep the other wizard's eyes as he knelt to retrieve the devastated tool…and lifted it whole and healed to level at him. "Not particularly, but I will, and you know that whatever loopholes you think you have, you and Iare a match for each other. Green Man and Black Knight, don't think I forget."

"I've a present for ya."

"Really, now?"

"Can see how ya'd be surprised, much's ya been a bastard today, but since Sue told me 'bout your parents, that I'll forgive." If Seamus recognized the audacity of what he was saying, he didn't seem to, and his smile was the twist of a knife on the edge of sarcasm. "'Sides, as ya said, you've forgiven me some fair outrageous mess, so I reckon I owe ya same."

Neville refused to be baited, his wand never wavering, and he could feel the ancient power itching and tingling his fingertips, hungry to be used – _really _used – after so long. "How generous."

"Nah, generous is that I've put t'bounds o' friendship over those o' the Loch, and I've risked me very head t'give ya this, for we both know orders're out t'kill me as dangerous on sight if's I ever escaped."

Seamus held out his other hand, and something appeared there; a small book covered in purple velvet, the pages tied together with a matching ribbon and some kind of monogram on the cover that he couldn't make out at this angle. "What is it?"

"Fascinatin' wee book I got from a gentleman named Robert Brown, what happens t'have lost his younger sister some ten years ago but retained a few o' her things. Seems it's been popular o' late…not two weeks ago, he were offered no less than 200 Galleons by someone t'just look at it for an hour, and he's been hurtin' bad about the purse lately…." He tossed it across the laden space between them, and Neville caught it, unable to stop the gasp of shock as he saw not just the initials, but the year beneath in matching script.

L V B  
1998

"This is _Lavender's_ diary."

"Ain't it just." Seamus smirked. "And funny thing, if ya look at twelve February, you'll be seein' her mention quite clearly comin' to lay with me."

"I'm…" Neville's mouth moved uselessly, completely at a loss for words as he stared at the true source of their 'betrayal.' The hungry urge of the magic was gone, replaced instead by a thick, growing sense of shame that he had so easily believed the worst of his dearest friend, no matter how strong the evidence had seemed.

"No need." Seamus waved his hand as if the whole thing had been nothing. "Fool you'd been to think else, and no harm done. Now, if you're still willin', Sue and I'd be happy t'take Hannah and the wee ones for ya."

Neville shook his head, still struggling to make sense of the complete reversal. "I can't."

"Dear bleedin' tears o' the axe-buggered Saints, Fearless Leader, what d'ya want from me?" Seamus exclaimed. "I -"

"I've already sent them with Justin. He's having them hidden somewhere in the Muggle world."

He hadn't really known what to expect, but the look of sudden, stark horror and anger that brought the flush surging hotly back to Seamus' face was not it, nor having the other man slam forward to grab his robes in both fists and pushing him against the wall with the strength that was always so surprising in a man his size. "Get them back! Get them back right now! Don't ya be trustin' him, he's a feckin' _MP! House o' feckin' Lords!"_

"He'd never betray Hannah!"

Seamus snorted in open disdain, and the look he gave Neville was one of indulgent pity for the hopelessly naive. "Those sort'd do anythin' for crown and country, ya better believe. Men, women, children, whether or not ya'd think it'd be better for them not. Parliament's stubborn madness were t'backdrop to me whole growin' up…they'd slit their own throats for Almighty Regina."

The too-familiar words seemed to chill the blood in his veins, and he felt suddenly at once helplessly weak and hotly panicked as he thought back to the ward where the dead now haunted, to cool grey eyes sparking with uncharacteristic passion. "Slit their…_no…._"

"Get them back, then!" Seamus thrust a hand towards the door, but Neville could only shake his head sickly, letting it fall back against the wall with a dull, hollow thud.

"No, you don't understand. It's too late. They're already _gone."_

TO BE CONTINUED


	7. De Integro

"If ya won't go, I will." Seamus took a step back, but Neville barely recovered himself and reached out in time to keep him from turning.

"_No._" He pushed himself to his feet again, shaking away the despair that had threatened to choke up again like vomit. "If I've made a terrible mistake there, it's too late, and if I let you go, I'm just throwing you away."

Seamus made a face that was both dismissive and a bit confused. "I ain't –"

"I _need _you, and not just because you're my friend, or because you're about the only person I do trust right now." His voice dropped to a low, conspiratorial tone, even though they were alone in the deserted pub. "I'm going to be sending a lot of people your way, and I want more than spells protecting them, but beyond that, if they can't track this murderer down…well…"

The blue eyes gleamed with an unsettling comprehension. "If you're gonna be chasin' a rat underground, ya need someone knows their way round t'gutter. Aye."

"Exactly." He took his hand from his friend's shoulder now, clapping it once firmly as he stepped back. "For now, though, tell Sue to expect serious company."

"How many?"

"All the children of the DA and most of their mothers," Neville stated bluntly. "It looks like I'm the target by proxy for now, and it's not alchemy to know that other than my own family, there'd be no deeper way to hurt me than through my soldiers."

Seamus nodded, and the years between them could see how seriously he was taking this even through the cheeky grin. "Ya know, Fearless Leader, you'd best be understandin' I'm tellin' her this as a message straight from the top."

Neville raised one eyebrow, tugging the wrinkles from his robes as he prepared to Apparate to Willow Creek. "And why is that?"

"Because there's an old Celtic proverb, there is; Man who brings home thirty unexpected dinner guests sleeps on t'couch 'till his bits fall off."

OOO

"As your friend, Neville, I want to say 'of course,' but as the Head of Department, my answer has to be an absolute no." Harry put down the mug of coffee, crossing his arms resolutely as he stared over his glasses at Neville with what he knew was meant to be a look that conveyed no hope of argument.

Neville, however, was not so easily dissuaded, and he matched the stubborn posture with his own. "I'd think of all people, Harry, you'd understand wanting to track down the person who killed your parents."

"That's exactly why I said no." It looked as if Harry was about to get up and leave right then and there, but then he stopped, settling back down in the chair as his face softened to genuine sympathy. "I was way, way too personally involved…I burned out completely, and I cost a lot of people their lives, even if it worked out in the end. Maybe that was the only way for it to have a chance with Riddle, but that was a very strange situation all around. This…Neville, I can't. It would be effectively authorizing a vigilante."

Neville snorted, smiling grimly. "Would you rather have an authorized or unauthorized one?"

"That sounded uncomfortably close to a threat."

"More a statement of fact." He spread his hands openly on the table, deliberately trying to prevent this from becoming the ridiculous power struggle it was so nearly verging on and had no need to be. The tension that had stood between himself and Harry since Riddle's defeat was something that the years had faded until it often seemed to have vanished completely, and now was not a time to let it flare again.

"I'm not just sitting back and evaluating broomstick legislation while this nutjob is on the loose. I resigned in good standing. You are completely free to renew my commission, and I'm asking you please. As my friend," Neville took a deep breath, treading carefully on the next, delicate step. "And because you once said you wished you could repay me…."

Harry winced, then shook his head again. "If I think it's for the good of the Department; and we all know that you bent the rules on the Finnigan case until they screamed."

"Kingsley still wanted to retain me."

"Neville, stop." It wasn't an order, it was a request not to take this to a fight, and Neville felt a stab of guilt that almost made him sorry for having pushed so hard. "I'm not budging on this. You're not getting anywhere near this case, and if you try, you're going to force me to do something I really, really, really don't want to and put a man I owe a great debt of gratitude under arrest."

He meant it. Harry really meant it, and Neville bit back the retort that had been on the tip of his tongue, forcing himself instead to take a step back. He wasn't going to just back down, that was no question, but there were always other ways. After several seconds, he leaned forward again, smiling in what he hoped was a conciliatory enough manner. "What if you renew my commission, but don't put me on the case?"

This time, the snort of skepticism was Harry's. "I'm no fool, Neville."

"No, I mean it, Harry…I'm trying to compromise here." The last was a bit more snappish than he had intended, and he stopped himself, starting again slower and more calmly. "This isn't the only case the Department is running. You still have a normal workload. What if you bring me back in, I take on as much of _that _as I can carry, and you're free to put all your attention to finding the murderer?"

The green eyes narrowed, and he could all but see Harry turning the offer over in his mind, searching it for angles, loopholes, hidden tricks of phrasing. "I thought you were determined to be on the case yourself?"

"If filing things and running down routine hexings means that there is another top Auror on the hunt, then I am," Neville answered honestly, making no effort to hide that it was still far from his first choice.

To an outsider, it might have seemed like Harry had written him off entirely as he abruptly stood and paced to the far corner of the room, taking off his glasses, cleaning them on his shirt, and putting them back on again as he muttered under his breath. Neville knew, however, that this wasn't a dismissal – it was itchingly close to a yes, in fact – and he said nothing, waiting until at last Harry pivoted back towards him, running a hand through his hair before jabbing a finger towards him like a disobedient child. "You so much as _think _of touching it officially, you know a good Solicitor could get our whole case tossed."

He almost didn't dare answer, not wanting to risk saying the wrong thing at such a fragile juncture, but Harry was clearly expecting him to say something, and he nodded. "I understand."

The broad smile of relief that suddenly appeared on Harry's face was not what he had expected, nor the warmth of the handshake that he rather numbly returned. "It's a deal, then."

"Er…thank you," Neville managed.

"Don't," Harry shook his head, but the smile was still there, the words teasing. "I'm probably going to regret this."

"No, you won't," he promised seriously. "I'm not going to cheat when you're trusting me."

"I'll give you Smith's load, then, and bring him onto the homicides." Harry returned to his place at the table, reaching into the pocket of his robes for his notepad and flipping a few pages before he found what he was looking for. Tearing off the sheet, he handed it over, his manner having returned to pure business. "He's wrapping up that assault in Essex, there was a break-in and art theft at Malfoy Manor, and there's someone running tainted black-market _Felix Felicius. _ It's tossing you back into the deep end a bit, but times are hard, and it doesn't always bring out the best in people. Things have been hot for us even without these murders ever since the Wizengamot cut our numbers. Only two Death Eaters still at large; they think we're just a Vanishing Charm for Galleons and want to leave everything to the Enforcers._"_

Neville glanced over the list, noticing two more cases that Harry had neglected to mention, though both were marked as already being prepared for trial. He would have to ask Zacharias if he was expected to take those as well. "I can handle that, absolutely. When can I start?"

Harry flipped the notepad closed and replaced it in his robes, shrugging. "Tomorrow, if you really want to, but I'd think you'd want to take a few days to --"

"Tomorrow," he interrupted firmly, then changed the subject before the other man could question it. "There's something else I need to tell you, but I need you to promise me something first."

The look that flashed through Harry's eyes was almost betrayal, and as his jaw set, his back straightening, Neville realized that he thought his generosity was already being played for loopholes. "Depends."

He met Harry's eyes evenly, keeping his own as open and honest as he could. "This isn't about my commission, Har--I guess I should get used to calling you 'Sir,' shouldn't I?"

"You're not back until tomorrow, and still, Nev, unless it's something properly official, I don't run things the same way Robards did." He still hadn't let his guard down, but he reached across the table to lay a comradely hand on Neville's. "Harry, Zach, Tony, Demmy, Saz, Brian. Justin and Ron on Reserve, but I'll be trying to get them back in, too. There's too few of us who have seen too much to be _Auror_ this and _Sir_ that." His eyes narrowed. "But whether it's 'Harry' or 'Potter' or 'Sir,' what are you wanting me to promise before you'll tell whatever it is?"

Neville took a deep breath, wishing suddenly that he hadn't said anything after all, but knowing it was too late. "Promise me you'll take what I'm about to tell you as the offer of a friend and not a sign of backsliding."

"Now I've gone from nervous to _extremely _nervous. This is about Finnigan, isn't it?"

"He hasn't hur --."

"Stop!" Harry closed his eyes, pressing his palms against them beneath his glasses before meeting Neville's gaze again, his voice soft. "Don't tell me if you're going to ask me to violate ethics here. Because I owe him my life, Ginny's, Ron's, Hermione's…don't abuse what you know I'd forgive him."

"It's nothing he's done," this time, it was Neville who reached across the table to give the other man's hand a quick, reassuring squeeze. "But he wants to make you an offer, Harry."

"Why doesn't he send me an owl, then?"

"Because he doesn't want it in writing, and he doesn't trust his own mouth not to get in the way of asking you himself. You might forgive him anything, but he's still a bit of a hothead about you, whether it's fair or not."

Harry chuckled darkly. "I think I fell out of his good graces thirteen years ago. Can't say I'm surprised…he strikes me as the kind of bloke who could hold a grudge. But he's making me an offer, you say?"

"It's a straightforward trade," Neville continued quickly, stopping himself from getting into an irrelevant argument about what exactly who thought of whom. Now wasn't the time, and those two would be better sorting it out among themselves anyway if it truly needed to happen. Middlemen rarely improved such things. "If he brings in the killer, you get his sentence commuted. He offered it after I asked him to take in the DA's families at the Loch…which includes your kids, by the way."

"The latter I'll take you up on," Harry agreed, then one dark eyebrow lifted in what Neville couldn't tell was skepticism or interest. "But the killer…does he know who it is?"

"No," he admitted, "but he has a lot of experience tracking down people on the dark side of the law who don't want to be found."

"It's no good if we get our suspect in little pieces."

"He'd be alive, that much he promises."

The argument had been perfunctory only; he already knew what the answer would be, but Harry seemed to be considering it far longer than he had expected, and when he finally did speak, Neville felt his jaw drop in shock. "Tell him thank you, but that would be my last resort. Only if we have _no_ chance doing it through the 'right' channels."

"I…" Neville shook his head, trying to recover himself. "I'd have thought you'd say no."

"I don't like someone running around on my watch leaving a trail of bodies," Harry replied darkly. "Besides, my motives aren't all pure."

Now it was Neville's turn to be suspicious. "What do you mean?"

"We both know Finnigan's no sociopath, but he _was _incredible at what he did. That took discipline, and it took monumental courage. If he could learn to work within _our _rules – the Ministry's rules – like he did Utterson's --"

Neville held up a hand, cutting him off mid-sentence. "No chance, Harry. I can see where you're going, but no. Assuming he completely forgave you, the day I can imagine Seamus Finnigan carrying a Ministry badge is the day Goblins are passing out gold in the streets. It wasn't 'Utterson's rules', it was _their _plan, and --"

He was interrupted by a loud crack, and both men turned to find Anthony standing just inside the door of the sitting room, looking rather flustered as he smoothed a hand quickly through his dark curls. "Sorry I'm late. I took some work home and kind of lost track of the time."

"Sit down, Tony," Harry gestured with his wand, pulling out a third chair. "I think we were just about to get to you anyway, but first…you should know, Neville's renewing his commission with us."

Anthony smiled, tipping him a small, congratulatory salute as he took his place between them. "I thought you might, mate. Welcome back." The smile turned sympathetic, and his voice softened respectfully. "I'm so sorry about your parents…I know that words aren't much of anything, Commander, but I want you to know that I'll be working with you on this like they were my own. We'll get him."

"Not for this case, Tony," Harry corrected softly. "He's taking Zach's load to open him up for us."

"Ah." Anthony shifted awkwardly, but he recovered almost at once. "He's bloody good; gets his teeth in a case like a Manticore. And we'll be bringing back the Reserve too, right? Justin and Ron?"

"I think five bodies ought to be enough to squeeze the funds from the Wizengamot," Harry said bitterly, then nodded his head towards Anthony with a questioning look. "Any progress?"

"I've finished the review of Hermione's memories," Anthony's instant shift to hardened all-business was a little disconcerting. "There's no sign of alteration, but it only deepens our mystery. She and Seamus were definitely the last to see the Longbottoms alive, and they were alone with them. Thirty-seven minutes, then she was tired, and they let her sleep. Hermione was the only one to touch the doorknob – it still records her as the last before Healer Monroe discovered the bodies -- and she heard it click and seal when they left."

"Any more warnings from her?" It was easier than it should have been to keep his voice steady, but Neville could feel the surge of a very dangerous _something _beneath the tight control at the mention of his parents. "Anything that might suggest she knew she was in danger? Her last –" His voice choked traitorously, but he pushed past it, relieved that neither of the other men showed any sign of having heard. "Her last word to me was 'goodbye.' Do you think she knew?"

"There was no indication," Anthony said gently. "The very few bits that Hermione and Seamus did manage to decode seemed to just be asking after you."

The simple statement hit him like a hex to the gut, but he swallowed hard, hurrying on with a crisp professionality of his own that he hoped wouldn't sound as false as it was. "But if her warning to me last night was about Dumbledore, that would connect to –" The thought of the diaries sparked something, and he held up a finger to pause the conversation as he searched quickly through his robes, finally pulling out the small book Seamus had given him and tossing it onto the table in front of Anthony. "Speaking of…it was her brother."

Anthony picked it up, turning it over in his hands, and he saw the flicker from confusion to the ghost of renewed grief in the dark eyes as he recognized Lavender's initials. "Her brother?"

"The leak in the DA that you found with Skeeter," Neville explained. "It came from this; her brother let Skeeter look at it for a few hours in exchange for a hefty pile of Galleons."

A flush rose on the olive complexion, and it was alarming to see even an instant's such unabashed hate across Anthony's normally composed features. "That _hag_!"

"I don't want to say she deserved it, because murder's a bit much," Neville took the diary back, tucking it back into his pocket with such care that it was as if he could somehow recover a bit of his friend's lost dignity and privacy in the gesture, "but I'm not crying that her last article never saw print, either."

Anthony took a deep breath, and although it wasn't quite the same flawless professionality as before, he no longer looked as though he were about to hunt down and hex the dead. "I'm backing off the diaries for now, though; taking a new angle. I'm going to see if I can find any sign of the other books that we stole having shown up on the black market, confirm or refute authenticity that way. There are a few rare book collectors I have a pinch on after having caught them with some dark magic tomes that were not supposed to be in private hands." He paused, looking to Harry with a somewhat sheepish half-smile. "Although Hermione pointed out something…it's not just Neville that links our victims."

"Oh?"

"Dumbledore. All three Longbottoms and Jones were original Order, and Rita literally wrote the book about him. And they start dropping the moment the diaries start appearing."

Harry's mouth opened, shut, then he took his glasses off and laid them meticulously to the side before getting up and walking over to the nearest wall…which he proceeded to bang his forehead against several times. Neville would have laughed if he hadn't felt like doing the exact same thing. "We can share the dunce cap," Anthony offered mildly. "I didn't think of it either. I never read Rita's trash book, completely missed that connection."

"I read it." Another introduction of forehead to wallpaper. "Cover." _Thunk. "_To." _Thunk. _"Cover." _Thunk. _"Leave it to Hermione…."

"Harry, I understand where you're coming from, but you have about three more smacks before Mimsy comes down on you, and we don't need that," Neville warned. Harry stopped immediately, and he waited until they were all seated again and he was quite sure they were _not _about to be descended upon by an irate house-elf before he continued. "That's a good lead, but I don't want to take chances that it's _not _me. So far, it's an equal case, considering what Rita was working on when she was killed."

"Jones – " Anthony began, but Neville's look stopped him.

"Was my mother's best friend. There are pictures of Meg and I playing together as babies."

"Okay, then, we work both angles evenly." Anthony brought out his own notepad, a flick of his wand transfiguring the tip into the already-inked nib of a quill. "If it's you, Neville, where would you say they'll be going next?"

"It depends if they're trying to cut me off from access to the past or just hurt me." It was strange, even a little heady how easy it was to fall back into this. The back-and-forth, the camaraderie of the elite Department, the strange, dangerous excitement of decoding clues and finding patterns in despair. "If it's the former, I'd say anyone who knew my parents. If it's the latter…anyone with a Galleon they'll never spend. Top on the first list would probably be the Weasleys, Seamus for the second."

"If they go after Finnigan, they _are _mental," Anthony scoffed, but he was already taking notes. "Still, they've already gotten into a secured ward without leaving a trace, not to mention being willing to strike in broad daylight on a public street."

"What bothers me most is that we still don't have a motive, no matter if the connection is Neville, Dumbledore, or someone or something else that we're still missing." Harry twirled his wand between his fingers, leaning back in his chair to drape his feet over the armrest in a way that would have made Gran furious. "These are clean, almost clinical strikes. Straight AKs, no fuss, no trace, no torture or sign of struggle or interrogation beforehand, and we don't have the first idea _why_." He paused, then gestured with the wand towards Anthony. "Let's start with the big four."

Anthony nodded, ticking them off on his fingers. "Money, Love, Power, and Batshit."

"Who stands to benefit from your grandmother's will, Neville? If your parents are gone? Anyone other than you?"

"No, and if something had happened to me, there was a stipend to take care of the property as long as Mimsy was alive, but the rest would have just gone to St. Mungo's. I'm her only heir." Neville ran over the will in his mind once more, ensuring he hadn't missed anything, then shrugged. "All right, my kids inherit as well, of course, but as ruthless as Peg can be sometimes when there are sweets involved, I think this is a little beyond a four year-old. Besides, she has an alibi. So do her brothers."

"Not to offend," Anthony said thoughtfully, "but I don't see two hospital-bound married invalids and an elderly widow being embroiled in too many vicious love triangles."

"Maybe not now, but what about something like Snape?" The enthusiasm of a sudden idea was clear in Harry's voice, but the other two men couldn't help but look at him as if he'd gone a bit off his wand.

"_Snape?"_

"Merlin," Neville groanded, "Just what we need! More dead people!"

Harry dismissed them both with an irritated wave of his hand, already chasing down his new epiphany. "He was in love with – _obsessed _with – my mother, and Dumbledore was blackmailing him with that. What if he got the idea from someone else? What if he'd done it before, had another sneak on his payroll in the Death Eaters or the Ministry? What if there was someone who wanted Alice – or Frank, for that matter – and they're getting scared now that the old diaries are coming out, but they can't control those, so they're trying to eliminate witnesses that could confirm or deny both the diaries and the…the whatever it was. Affair, one-way obsession, whatever. Keep it in the realm of rumor, especially if they're in a position of power now --"

"And about to deal with his or her son in the context _of _that power," Neville finished, impressed. It was times like these it was easy to see that it wasn't his famous name that had earned Harry his position. The man's instincts could be uncanny. "Not to mention that if I have half as much influence as people seem to think I do, I could probably hurt them pretty bad if I thought I had reason to hate them."

"Power. Number three of the big four," Anthony agreed eagerly. "Possibly hints of four as well. I think we may have the key to this spell."

"Did your mother keep a diary, Neville? Or your father?"

"I used to wish they did, but no. My mother had a handful she'd tried to start as a girl, but they never got past the first page where she vowed that this time she really meant it that she would keep it up."

"If she was your mother's best friend, Jones would definitely have known if she had a lover," Harry murmured, half to himself. "And that kind of scandal is right up Rita's alley if she was trying to dig something juicier on you than Lavender could have offered…and click, click, click, we have our chain. All five."

Neville frowned, not liking this latest step one bit. "My mother would never have cheated on –"

"I'm not thinking like your friend," Harry snapped, "and you can't think like her son. Neither of us can really say we knew our parents, Neville."

"People don't change that much," he protested, "And Gran—" Neville stopped as something occurred to him, something so _wrong _that he didn't want to say it, but they were both looking at him, and Harry was right. This was no time to think he knew anyone. "Harry, on the day my Gran died, I had something spectacularly weird happen."

"In our lives," Harry observed dourly, "that's not a good thing to hear."

"Draco Malfoy came to visit me."

Anthony pulled back, eyes wide. "Tallish, slimy, extremely blonde, schoolboy fondness for impersonating ferrets?"

Neville shot him an exasperated look, sighing. "How many Draco Malfoys do you know, Tony?"

Harry, however, had already moved on…if he had been startled at all to hear of the unusual visit. "What did he want?"

"An alliance. To 'take me under his wing' and teach me the ways of the Wizengamot in exchange for a good word. Took me to the Manor, was really trying to charm me up proper, but I wasn't in much of a listening mood that day." For a moment, he considered sharing the revelation about Hannah, but decided against it. Even among friends, it never hurt to keep a few cards to yourself.

"He's too young to be our mystery man," Harry mused. "He's only a few months older than we are."

"But he made a big deal about how precarious his situation already is, and on that he was being honest, at least." Neville made a face, hardly able to believe what he was about to say. "His father's just the right age, and if there's anything that could make me hate Draco more than I already do, it's finding out that his father had an affair with or forced himself on my mother."

Harry let out a low, impressed whistle. "Let's pray you're not half-brothers."

"I have never been so thankful that I can say I unmistakably have Franklin Longbottom's nose."

There was a long, uncomfortable silence, then Harry nodded, sitting up straight in the chair again, and his face had taken on what Neville recognized as authority surmounting friendship to issue an order rather than a request. "Take him up on his offer."

"Oh, Merlin, I was afraid you'd say that."

"Use this," Harry continued tautly. "Tell him you've changed your mind, that this has shaken you badly, that you need his expertise before something else terrible happens. I still don't want you officially on the case, but Malfoy is definitely a suspect now, and if I have this kind of chance to get you in more or less undercover with him, I'm taking it. Be as much of the eager, naïve willing pupil as you can stand."

"I'll not punch him," Neville said resignedly. "More than that, and he'll know something's up."

Anthony tipped his head mildly, almost hiding his amusement. "I thought it was Harry, Ron, and Hermione with a history of punching him?"

"All right, so I just assaulted him with plantlife, but if I refrain, that should still be enough. Maybe I'll grant him a handshake."

"Attack of the deranged hydrangeas," Harry mused. "Now that does sound more like you."

The smile had gone, the makeshift quill moving busily again as Anthony thought aloud. "You know, Harry, he might be counting on your old animosity to keep him safe here."

"Thinking I'll automatically keep him off the list as long as possible to avoid making it seem personal…I follow you." Harry made a distasteful noise, then snapped himself back on track. "He's wrong. Hogwarts was a long time ago. This isn't about calling Hermione names, and I still think he's a slippery, cowardly git more than properly capable of murder, but I'm not taking chances. We'll pack up the kids tonight, and I'm sending Ginny, too. She won't actually put up a fight since she's getting so close to having the baby."

Anthony looked up, curious. "Sending them to the Loch?"

"All the DA's families, if I can," Neville added. "Seamus and Sue have agreed to shelter them for the time being, and actually, your wife should have gotten the owl about it while we've been sitting here."

"I'll have Li, Asa, and Fi there by morning." Anthony pushed back from the table, replacing the notepad and his wand as he looked across the other two faces. "If you don't mind, though, considering that, I'm going to need to take as much time as I can get to try and put this to the girls in a way that won't upset them, so I'm going to have to beg off for now. See you tomorrow at the office, Neville? Back in the green?"

Neville sighed, wondering if he could send Mimsy to collect his uniform. He didn't want to go to the _Cauldron_ again, but the only alternative would be to see if he could wear…no. That wasn't even something to think about. Even if it probably would fit.

Thankfully, before his lack of a reply could be noticed, Harry held up a hand. "Before you go, Tony?"

"Yes?"

"Next time, don't lie."

Harry was smiling, but the remark yanked Neville's thoughts alarmingly from the upstairs closet they had refused to abandon. "_Lie_?!"

"Got caught up in work, you said? Hmmph! We're all married men." Harry gave a meaningful nod downwards, and as Anthony's eyes followed, he turned first pale, then exceedingly red. "Your personal life is your business, but I don't think you're flexible enough to get lipstick on your own trouser buttons."

For several seconds, Anthony struggled to find a reply, but there simply wasn't one to be had, and at last he contented himself with an equally eloquent gesture before Apparating away, leaving Harry shaking with rather un-Aurorlike giggles. Neville had to admit that he was close to the same himself, but he still worked up the most admonishing glare he could. "That was mean."

"That was fair." Harry took a deep breath, composing himself. "He found a pair of Gin's knickers in my desk drawer last week." Another chuckle under his breath, but then the last of the amusement faded, and when he looked up again, his eyes softened. "Official business is over, okay?"

There was something in the way he said it, and Neville drew back, uncertain. "Yeah. I _will _be there tomorrow, though."

"Of course you will. Nev, when you give your word, I consider it already done, hell or high water." The compliment was said as an afterthought, and although Harry too had stood, he didn't seem inclined to leave yet. He fidgeted uncertainly with his wand, then put one hand firmly on Neville's shoulder, meeting his eyes with so much true compassion that he had to look away. "That doesn't change what's happened. I don't feel right leaving you here alone."

"I won't be alone," Neville dodged. "I have Mimsy, and –"

"Neville…" Harry circled around to crouch in front of his chair, ducking under his dropped gaze so that he could no longer avoid those piercing eyes. "I don't remember my parents, but I remember Cedric, Sirius, Dumbledore, and I know that what hurt more than anything else was that all that grief and confusion and anger had nowhere to go but an empty bedroom on Privet Drive. Don't suppose I'll think you're weak or –"

"No. I'm all right." The smile bent his mouth like it would break it, and when he wrapped his hands around Harry's, he didn't really want to let go, but the words floated past his lips so easily that they seemed to come from somewhere else entirely. "I've had losses before, too. I know how to deal with it, but thank you for the offer."

Harry didn't seem quite dissuaded, but he still stood, stepping away to give himself room. "Floo. Send a Patronus. I don't care if it's four in the morning. If you need – if you _want _anything…."

"I'm fine, Harry. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Tomorrow."

A last, lingering look. A twist. A crack. Alone.

"I really am fine," Neville stood, pushing the other two chairs back neatly under the table and waving his wand to vanish the remains of the coffee from their cups and push them into a pile for Mimsy. "I'm busy. Busy is good. And tomorrow I'll be back in uni—"

Green wool and shining brass buttons in Gran's upstairs closet. Hannah's beautiful face in a mother's empathy as she had turned to him. _Your father's uniform, Neville. She's kept it perfectly preserved. He could wear it tomorrow. _

_Wear it tomorrow. _

_Tomorrow. _

Maybe he was not fine.

Neville closed his eyes, squeezing them so tightly that there could be no tears as he braced himself against the table, looking up towards the ceiling in a blind plea to someone who couldn't hear him anyway. "Hannah." His voice sounded as if he hadn't used it in a century, a whisper rough and tattered. "Hannah, come back. I'm sorry, love. I…oh, Merlin…I _need _you."

It was wrong. Selfish and wrong and not fair, because even if she could hear him, she couldn't come back yet. There was someone out there who was killing, who had already taken, and it was the right thing to do to send them away. Even if he didn't know where they were. Even if it felt like he'd lost them too, and what if he had? What if he never saw them…_no. NO! _

He shook his head furiously, as if he could physically rattle the horrifying possibilities from his mind. If they did it, if they were strong enough, good enough, smart enough, brave enough, he could have them all back again, whole and healthy and happy, and if not, it wouldn't matter, because then he knew with a certainty that should have been far more upsetting that there would be nothing at all holding him back from going completely mad.

Waking up the twins with the sun barely warm through the duck-patterned drapes of the nursery, gently stroking soft little heads and singing that silly good-morning song Hannah's mum had sang to her and unable not to smile as they so solemnly untangled from the single knot of chubby limbs that didn't matter if they were put down in separate beds. The tiny creases of concentration between Ernie's eyes as he mashed his entire hand down on a bit of potato to smear it vaguely towards his mouth. Hearing his own Yorkshire and Hannah's softer Kent mingled in their words at childish random. How seeing these lives they had created almost erased the memories of those he'd taken.

It hurt. It hurt and he didn't want to, but it was what he'd lost for now and beyond it…beyond it was sweet wrappers piled deep in his bedroom drawer. Beyond it was holding Gran's long, pearl-tipped hat pin as they got ready to go to market. Beyond that was his own self-imposed title that anyone else would have heard coldly, but that said "Commander" with more love and pride than most boys ever heard "Son." Beyond that was tears of grateful possibility and bird-thin hands clutched in RAF blue wool. Beyond that was "good-bye."

Beyond that was what nothing could ever bring back.

As a child, he had been afraid of the thunderstorms that rattled the Dales throughout the summer. When the skies would darken and the wind begin, he would hide under his bed or in a closet, shaking at what seemed all the enormity of nature pitted against one little house and one even littler boy who didn't even have magic. Gran had thought it a ridiculous fear, but he still remembered the day she had pulled him, crying and begging, out of his hiding place and out of the house to face the storm in all its fury. It had been sheer terror at first, but slowly, as the warm rain soaked them both, he had come to see the beauty and majesty of it, to learn that there was nothing, after all, to fear.

But this was a storm of a different kind, and despite the years that had passed, he was afraid again. He could feel it coming, building, aching in his blood and tight across his back, pulling fresh pain from the scars, making his hands shake as he gripped the edge of the table, pleading, willing himself to keep control. He'd never let himself go, not really, not _since_, and he didn't dare. What he was now, what he had become in that cavern didn't matter day to day, but he knew that his conjunction with Danu had left him with a power that had turned the seasons, and it was there against the muzzled sobs of the child like thunderheads on the horizon.

He was gasping, his fingernails marking the wood, but there was no one but himself to hold him back, and he had to. He _had to. _Tears were expected, grief reasonable, but this hollow, screaming madness was not his privilege. He had too much responsibility, there was too much he needed to do, and even if he didn't rend the earth with it, it would certainly be enough to tear _him _apart, to drown him under it, and if he ever wanted to see his family again….

Breaking his eyes open again, he swallowed it down like choking to death, raising his voice in a calm that was wholly a lie. "Mimsy?"

The little elf was there at once, appearing with a crack that sounded so much like lightning that he jumped, her expression entirely too soft, entirely too fretful, her cadences entirely too much like Gran's. "Master Neville needs something?" She paused mid-curtsy, hurrying over to stroke a hand soothingly against his leg. "Oh, Mimsy sees…Mimsy understands. Master Neville misses –"

"I'm fine, Mimsy." The composure of his own voice shocked him, as did the reflection of the at most mildly sorrowful face he glimpsed reflected in the dining room windows. Hannah always said he was a poor liar. She was so wrong. "Would you be willing to help my friends with something, though?"

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously, searching his face, but at last she finished the curtsy she had begun before. "Anything Master Neville needs, of course."

"You've never met my friend Seamus, but you know his wife. Susan?"

She thought a moment, tapping her rounded chin with the tip of one finger. "She is the one that Mistress brought here on the Bad Night, yes? Who helps all of Master Neville's soldiers and has most beautiful hair?"

"Exactly," Neville nodded. "She lives on a farm up in Scotland, and it is protected by very powerful magic, but you will be able to get there because you belong to me, and they are keeping all of my friends' children safe, so they're going to need some help."

To his surprise, Mimsy hesitated. "Their house-elf might not like Mimsy butting in, sir. Mimsy has heard things about those Scotch elves that are not very nice."

"They don't have one," he felt himself smile, taking the opportunity to make up for a bit of the damage he knew the _Cauldron _had inflicted on her dignity. "I thought that if anyone could show them just how indispensible an _excellent _house-elf can be…."

"Yes, sir!" Mimsy started to bustle away, then stopped, turning back to him with a frown. "If they are keeping all of Master Neville's friends' children, why did Master Neville send the Pub Trollop and the little ones away with Justin Finch-Fletchley?"

It took him far too long to answer, and when he did, he couldn't believe that the harshest tones of battlefield command were being thrown towards the creature who had been almost another parent to him. "That is not your business! Go. Now."

Mimsy looked as if he had struck her, her mouth falling open, and he thought he caught a glimpse of tears in her eyes as she vanished, but he didn't care. Whatever it made him, however much something whispered he would regret it later, he didn't care. He'd gotten her out, and that was all that mattered, because he didn't know what was going to happen, and the sting of words could be explained away so much more easily than the lash of accidental magic. She was safe, Merlin willing Hannah and the babies were safe, and he was alone in the shadow of the oncoming storm.

The edge of the table crumbled to soft loam in his hands, when he fell to his knees the floorboards were pulsing, too warm, filling the room with the sticky bite of fresh sap running like blood between the cracks. His back was throbbing now, aching so deeply he couldn't curl up and couldn't sit straight and certainly had no hope of escaping what his own thoughts so traitorously forced upon him.

Opening silver paper on his eleventh birthday and finding his father's wand nestled in the cotton wadding of the box, the hint of a smile on Gran's face. Testing it so fearfully, certain that it wouldn't work, then the startle and the wonderful laughter all around when the sparks erupted.

The way his mother had approached him on his first visit, curious as a child herself, eyes blank and unknowing, then startling all of them when she had fled to the corner, moaning and howling. They had rushed him away, not allowed him back for almost a year, but how awful that he knew now why. Because if it were longer than counting and he met a boy of six on the street, it would send him into just as much agony to recognize his own son as a baby no longer.

Gran's same smile, but deeper with pride when she had taken him to get his own cherry and unicorn because the linden had been driven, shattered into the dark hole of a silver mask. How he had thought she would be angry, tried to wash away the blood on his face, mumbled through the story omitting as many details as possible. But she had called him a very brave man. It was the first time she had used either word, and the shaken boy of fifteen who still couldn't quite believe he was alive had not recognized their treasure yet.

The unfathomable look in her eyes as she adjusted the ribbon of the Order of Merlin around his neck and advised him how to properly bow to Her Majesty. His mother mesmerized by the shining engagement ring on Hannah's finger, humming what he would give almost anything to know now. Telling Gran in breathless incredulity that they were expecting twins, and the clasp of her still-strong hand around his, the way she had brushed his cheek, that smile again. They had only gone to see his parents once when Hannah was visibly pregnant. Monroe had said the change upset them. Not the grandchildren they'd never…never…never….

Like a blast of thunder, the willow split itself apart, and while the house remained silent, the shattered wood began to scream.

OOO

He did not remember falling asleep, but the dawn was still vibrant with color when he awoke, the harsh new light refracting into his face through the jagged glass of the broken living room windows. His mouth was dry, his throat raw, his back knotted in deep, throbbing bundles of ache, and when he pushed to his knees, shaking his head and trying to reorient himself, the sudden nausea was so intense that he nearly threw up. Sweet Merlin, what had he _done _last night_? _

Clutching his head gingerly, Neville managed to stand slowly by closing his eyes away from the invasive light, and it baffled him how he had managed to aquire such an epic hangover in his grandmother's decidedly alcohol-free home. But no, it wasn't a hangover, not quite. The taste in his mouth was wrong – like…like _grass, _really – and he felt wrung out on a level far deeper than simple overindulgence. This was like having his bones hollowed out, as if something had been seeped from him, as if he had drained every drop of blood and replaced it with weak, thin water.

The room told him when he finally opened his eyes. A hurricane would have wreaked less devastation. Every piece of furniture was destroyed, some torn apart, some reduced to piles of dark compost as if left to rot for a thousand years. The timbers of the walls had come to life, sprouting branches with bright new leaves through the tattered wallpaper. Every once-upholstered surface was invisible beneath a thick blanket of moss, and the floor was knee-deep in the gorse and heather of the moors that should have been locked far outside the walls. And beyond the broken windows, the grounds had run wild. Every manicured hedge, every carefully tended flowerbed…gone. These were the Dales as they had been before the hand of man; primal and powerful, untamed and seemingly untamable masses of brush.

Incredulously, Neville ran his hands over his robes, fumbling through the folds and pockets for quite a while before finally locating his wand. His hand was shaking as he pointed it at what he was reasonably sure had been a chair, his voice rough as he tried to cast the spell that should have been easy for a child. "_Reparo!_"

A faint, sputtering spark popped from the end of his wand, but nothing more, he was struck with a fresh wave of nausea, and Neville heard himself laugh faintly. "All right then," he slipped the wand back into his pocket with a resigned sigh to no one. "I get the message. Enough's enough."

If he wanted to be in any shape to Apparate to the Ministry in – he checked his watch, grimacing – two and a half hours – he needed to lay off the magic completely. Get something to eat, some tea, let his body recover from what had rather obviously been quite the outpouring of unrestrained power. Really, it was almost easier this way, and he supposed he should be grateful. The memory had returned, but it was as vague as the painting of a distant storm across a large room, and best that he was just too drained to feel, that there was just too much to do to think.

It was the kitchen that held the greatest shock for him, but that was nothing like the one that had come when he had first awakened. In fact, it was entirely intact, but as he stared at the stove, he was forced to the realization that he had absolutely no idea what to do. That, in point of fact, he had never cooked for himself. Not once.

As as child, there had been Mimsy, then Hogwarts, and then he'd lived back here at the Creek again until he was married, when he had been living over a bloody _restaurant, _for Merlin's sake, with a wife who was a fantastic cook and even if she was busy there was always something set aside that he only needed to heat up, and…it wasn't as if he had tried to avoid it. It just had never occurred to him. _And now here I am, twenty-seven years old, Order of Merlin, half starving because I've power enough to accidentally unleash the fury of nature on my own front yard while having a bad night, and the only thing I can do is…tea._

Not even that, though. It took magic to boil water. 

Still, his life had taught him nothing if not how to improvise, and a search of the kitchen did eventually turn up a loaf of bread, some cold roast, some cheese, and a pot of mustard. Not breakfast food, maybe, but the resultant sandwich was workable enough, even if he half-crushed the bread because he didn't know what kind of knife to cut it with, even if the cheese was more broken chunks than tidy slices. There was milk to drink, the shower did have manual taps, and soon enough, Neville was pleased to find that he felt almost normal again.

There was only the matter now of his uniform. Despite feeling decidedly stronger, he had no desire to press his luck on magic with a cross-country Apparation looming closer with every tick of his watch, and that meant no way to send Mimsy to the _Cauldron. _He couldn't just report for duty in civilian attire, even if it _wasn't _grass-stained and torn in so many places, and that left only one option.

Taking a deep breath to steel himself, Neville followed the long hall to Gran's bedroom, but when he put his hand on the knob, he stopped. For a moment, he wondered if there had been a Shield Charm erected, it was so hard to move forward, but there was no tingle of magic, and he knew it was a silly idea. It was all in his head, just in his head, and he had let himself give in to that more than enough already. He turned the knob harshly, the brass squealing against the abusive wrench, pushing into the room as if ready to face an enemy.

No one there, of course. Just the bed, stripped down and still surrounded with the spells of a crime scene. Just the nightstand with her glasses still there beside the book she would never finish. Just the closet where at the end of the row hung two sets of men's Auror's robes. Slowly, like fighting against an Imperius ordering him back, Neville crossed the room to run one hand over the sleeve.

They were almost identical to his own. After a brief use of scarlet in the mid-nineties, Shacklebolt had decided to return the uniform to its traditional phaelo green to help restore the Department's public image in the wake of Riddle's abuses of power. Identical also, the patch on the breast, the texture of the serge, the brass buttons with their embedded crest. So easy, almost, to imagine they _were _his. He saw his hands move, but he felt nothing as he pulled them from the hanger, opened the buttons, slipped his arms into the sleeves. Closed cuffs, a slit on the side instead to allow the wand to be accessed at the belt. A thin trim of piping in gold. Buttons to the thigh instead of the waist. Such nothing details.

There was so much he had thought he knew, but this was so different. Pictures told him he tended towards his mother's sturdy build but had his father's height. This was a perfect length of mid-calf as if measured for him, but a taut tug of cloth across the chest and shoulders. Stories said his father had fought hard. This was patches of cloth in a dozen places that were newer than the surrounding fabric, magically mended, and here and there the color was faded where Scourgify had to be used a bit too deeply. Stubborn hope and the words of others said his father had loved him. This was a spot on the shoulder cleaned a thousand times exactly where he knew now a man rested the head of his infant son. This was a spot on the hem torn by tiny, terrified fingers locked in a closet while he had screamed his sanity away.

A sharp chiming noise startled him, and he snatched for his wand, remembering at the last second not to grab for his sleeve before he recognized the sound. Frowning, he pulled the watch from his pocket, staring in disbelief at the hands as he silenced the alarm. Quarter to eight? But that meant…he had been standing there nearly an _hour? _It wasn't possible. His sense of time must still have been off, another side-effect of the magic, maybe?

Not that it mattered. Neville squared his shoulders, closing his eyes as he drew deep within himself for the concentration he needed. He had made a promise, and now he made another. _You deserved better than this, Dad. You worked for justice, and so help me, I swear I will see justice done for you. _

OOO

Finding his way through the complicated corridors of the Ministry to the Auror Department came as easily as if he had last reported in mere days ago rather than years, but Neville was surprised to find that the offices themselves had shrunk. The bustling, spacious room he remembered was smaller now than the dining room of the _Cauldron, _the cubicles crammed in so tightly that there was barely room to turn around between them, and the furniture an oddly mixed collection of dented desks and spellotaped chairs.

It was obvious, too, that Harry ran things more casually than Robards before him, and he felt a bit awkward to discover that he was the only one in uniform among the witches and wizards already clustered around their Department Head, who had perched himself on the edge of the desk closest to the door. Neville squeezed in between Justin and Zach, wondering if he had misremembered the time, but just then the clock on the wall struck eight, and Harry nodded in satisfaction, rubbing his hands together briskly.

"Morning, people. Busy day ahead of us, and everyone can see we have some old friends rejoining us to help deal with what this morning's _Prophet _has decided to call the Nevermore Murders."

Anthony made a face. "Someone there's a fan of Muggle poetry, it seems."

"Personally, I always thought Poe was far too impressed with his own morbidity," Justin retorted archly. "Give me Byron or Plath when I'm in a black mood. _'I had a dream, which was not all a dream –'_"

"That's lovely," Harry interrupted, "but the ravens are not actually at the murder scenes or definitively connected to the victims. Let's not get caught up in it being about the diaries. It probably is, but coincidences do happen."

There were several nods, and he took a deep breath, gesturing at Neville. "For those of you coming back, you need to know about our budget. We don't have one. I've had to fight tooth and nail just to keep them from cutting our numbers further, and the only reason we've kept our salaries is that I've had to play on a few things I don't exactly like calling in." Harry tapped the scar on his forehead, then spread his hands with a wry, resigned smile. "So while I've got them to authorize the reserves with our killer on the loose, you're paying your own expenses out-of-pocket, and you'll be sharing cubicles. Neville with Saz, Ron, you're with Brian, Justin with Demmy. Not the best welcome back, but tea and coffee's still free. They do know when we'd mutiny."

"A career in politics does not always entirely preclude common sense," Justin laughed, raising his own paper cup of the thick, pitch-black departmental brew in salute. "And I'm certainly willing to take care of incidentals as well as pitch into a general petty cash if need be. It's an honor just to be back."

"Honor to _have _you back, all of you." Neville felt a warm squeeze on his arm, and looked down to see Demelza grinning up at him as eagerly as a long-lost lover. "We've missed you. Especially you, Commander."

His cheeks warmed at the unexpected enthusiasm, and he shrugged her away, chuckling awkwardly. "Thanks, Demmy, but I'm just Neville here."

"Sorry, Commander, things haven't changed that much."

She meant it lightly, but Neville caught the slight, involuntary wince from Harry and shook his head, determined to cut off any sense of split loyalties before they could take root. "As long as you remember who's Commander-in-Chief."

Harry raised his own cup of tea in acknowledgement, a touch of relief in his eyes, but Demelza just grinned at him in what looked almost like a wink behind the black eyepatch. "I remember who makes my assignments."

"Good to know you have your priorities, Chambers," Harry agreed dryly, then picked up a sheaf of parchment from the desk beside him. "Speaking of; case sheets are ready as soon as everyone gets changed. And be quick about it. Some of you are going out in fifteen."

Nods all around, and the group dispersed quickly to the two doors at the back of the room. Previously, the locker rooms had only been to keep spare robes in case of a particularly messy assignment, but he had no chance to wonder what else had changed before Harry tapped him on the shoulder. "Neville, a moment? Those robes….they're your father's, aren't they?" His voice had dropped, and there was a mixture of respect and sympathy tinted with something else that reminded him suddenly that the Potter's home had been destroyed, leaving Harry no such mementos.

His look must have been answer enough, because Harry sighed, pushing his hands uncomfortably into his pockets. "I get it. I do. But as much as I'm not trying to be a Troll when you're doing us a favor, I can't let you wear them."

Neville frowned, glancing over them again as if to confirm that there was no date embroidered beneath the crest. "The style's not that far off, Harry. I didn't think it would be too big a deal."

"It's not the style, it's the draw," Harry said grimly. "We've got someone out there who may be targeting you specifically, and I don't want you reaching for an empty sleeve because you weren't trained on a belt holster. Do you still have yours?"

For some reason, the simply reasonable rebuttal caused a wave of relief, and he realized how much more uncomfortable he had been with wearing them than he'd wanted to admit. "They're at the _Cauldron, _but I can get them."

Harry considered it a moment, then shook his head, already moving towards the changing rooms himself. "Tomorrow. We've got a big load today. You're close enough in size, you can borrow Zach's spare set. Just don't mess them up. Did I mention we have no budget?"

"I seem to recall something like that," Neville smiled as he followed through the tight warren of cubicles. "Is it really that bad?"

"Having to remind people in other departments that you saved the wizarding world to beg for spare Copying Quills isn't my idea of good." The bitterness was clear even over the sarcasm, and Neville couldn't help but cringe. Celebrity, as he had learned himself, had its upsides, but that was just humiliating, and he felt sincerely sorry for the other man.

"You'll have a friend on the Wizengamot this time next week," he offered quietly.

Harry did not look back, but his shoulders tightened, and there was a strange, icy warning in his tone. "I once thought I had several."

Before he could consider the implications of that, however, they had opened the door, and Neville discovered that like the offices beyond, the changing rooms were also smaller than they once had been, clearly meant for four men rather than the seven now pressed inside. An elbow almost caught him in the stomach, and he had to step back quickly, pushed up tight against the door as Callahan wheeled around, his ruddy face flushed deeper in annoyance as he brandished one scuffed black brogan. "Anyone seen me other shoe? May've tossed it in t'wrong locker last night, I'm thinkin'. Knackered out like a feckin' whore durin' shore leave, I were."

Anthony's voice sounded almost at once, muffled slightly as he pulled his shirt off over his head. "Over here, unless I have a spare foot I don't know about." Throwing the shirt into the bottom of the tiny locker, he grabbed the shoe and sent it flying into Callahan's waiting hand, his eyes widening as he spotted Neville. "Need something, Commander?"

Zach answered before he could, whether Harry had asked him already or he had assessed the situation for himself. "I think I know." He disappeared behind the thin metal door for a moment, then tossed the heavy robes across to Neville. "Here. Gimme those and I'll keep them safe. Protego and everything."

The unspoken understanding of their significance touched him, and he hoped the smile conveyed deeper than it felt as he began to strip off. "Thanks."

"Blimey! What happened to yours, Ron?" Neville looked up at Harry's bemused tone, half-afraid that he would see a uniform that still bore the evidence of some awful final mission, but instead the robes that Ron had just shrugged into were just cataclysmically wrinkled, as well as scrawled over with a lot of something that was very pink and distinctly glittery.

"Not sure," Ron admitted distractedly. "I think Rose may have gotten to them. Found them wadded up in a bag. It'll Scourgify."He seemed to be having some trouble with the buttons, and at first Neville wondered if some of them were missing or had been distorted, but as the other wizard turned, his face flushed, he saw what the problem actually was. Nor was he the only one.

"She shrink them, too?" Anthony asked dryly. His only answer was a scathing glare, and the raised eyebrow became a full-fledged grin. "Justice comes to all sooner or later! I believe that Mr. Weasley's legendary metabolism may finally be a thing of mere legend."

"Shut it," Ron snapped, but although it wasn't so much that Neville had even seen the gradual change over the years, his once-gangly form had definitely filled out, and the closely-cut uniform was proving anything but forgiving. "I've just lost a little definition, that's all."

Callahan could not resist, folding his arms smugly over his own barrel chest as he leaned against the door of his locker. "No one's sayin' ya _lost_ nothin', lad."

"I'm a perfectly normal bloke coming up on thirty," Ron retorted defensively, abandoning his efforts to force the old black trousers to button in favor of waving an accusatory hand at Anthony. "_You're _the one who's mental! Half those muscles don't even _exist_."

Anthony glanced down at himself, assessing the almost-inhumanly carved distinction of his own torso that Neville knew was the result of the tightly controlled strength needed to carry out the daily balancing act of his artificial legs. "Funny, I use them every day." He shrugged casually, pulling on his undershirt and reaching for his belt before adding as an afterthought. "But I also lack your love affair with bacon."

Ron glowered at him, but Anthony had already turned away to pull on his robes, and he settled for a wounded look at his best friend. "This, Harry, is why I don't miss working with smart-arse ex-Ravenclaws."

Harry's mouth was pressed tightly in what was obviously a struggle being lost between his sense of humor and his sense of loyalty. "Hermione and I _have _tried to tell --"

"I know, I know!" he interrupted, then sighed. "Fine. You win. I'll get back to the gym tonight."

Something in his voice suggested that the friendly jabs might have held some unwittingly very real sting, and Neville cleared his throat quietly, trying to keep his tone matter-of-fact and entirely non-judgmental. "That uniform, Ron, it was what, thirty-one at the waist?"

"I think so."

"I'll need some time at the office to look over the cases before I go out anyway." Neville shrugged off the borrowed robes he still hadn't buttoned, holding them out. "I'll send to the _Cauldron _for mine; you can borrow Zach's. I'm thirty-four, so if they fit me, they'll work fine for you."

Ron's eyes were warily appraising as his took them, searching for the tease, the disdain, but there was none to be seen. If anything, Neville envied his friend; envied the simple sense of security and safety that meant it was okay to put off a workout until tomorrow or the next day, to view your body with a 'good enough' shrug rather than the relentless scrutiny of a someone who would, as Demelza had so casually pointed out, always be the leader of an army. Some part of that must have shown in his face, because the guardedness turned to real gratitude, but before Ron could say anything, Harry spoke again.

"That's great of you, Nev, but be ready by noon." Harry tugged his sleeve down crisply over his holster, the friendly banter gone completely in a confident authority. "Malfoy will be expecting you regarding the theft, and Zach, you'll have to brief him quickly anyway. You're due at the _Prophet _to go over Rita's office at half-past."

Zach had been tying his shoes, and he straightened so quickly as he wheeled to face Harry that he missed slamming his head on the locker's edge by not even an inch. "Bloody hell! You lost your mind, Harry? No _way _I can --"

"It's okay, I can read," Neville said quickly. "Just point me at the files and notes you already have, and I'll let you know on the Galleon if anything's too confusing. Has your handwriting gotten any better?"

He didn't seem entirely happy with the arrangement, but there was little option, and Zach gave a non-committal shrug. "Harry can read it."

Behind Zach, Harry made a face, and Neville had to struggle to keep his reply deadpan professional. "Then it must have improved astronomically."

"You only have me until ten of eleven today, I fear." Justin had conjured a mirror to hover in mid-air, making minute, invisible adjustments to the robes that already hung so perfectly that Neville would half have thought he'd had them made new that day. "I'm shuffling madly at Parliament, and I should be able to clear for you tomorrow with the exception of a committee meeting from half-three to five which I simply cannot miss and I'll have to check my email to see if I'll be at Number Ten on Thursday evening, but –"

"Do what you need to." Harry clapped him lightly on the shoulder, but his eyes were serious. "I don't want you burning out on us again."

"Nostalgia has its limits," Justin agreed quickly. "Still, it's rather nice to all be working together again, dark though the circumstances may be. And I'd forgotten how I do like the uniforms, even if I still maintain they'd look devilishly noir with a fedora."

"Right crop o' spit and shiny hero boys, ya are, and a tough old dog t'keep ya in heel." Callahan made a brief snort of laughter, but the amusement in his blue eyes was merely a veneer over steel. "Don't reckon that murderin' fool knows what he's brought down on hisself."

"They never do," Ron agreed.

Justin vanished the mirror with a flick of his wand before tucking it away, and his answering smile was equally hard, creasing the thin scars on his face into fleeting relief. "And clearly, they never learn."

OOO

"Zach, you're on the Nevermore team now. Brief Neville as fast as you can, then you're going to the _Prophet, _interviewing Healer Monroe, then the witnesses from the Jones murder. Tony, I want to know if any of those books – or anything claiming to be them – has hit the black market collector circuit." Harry barely glanced over the writing on the parchment bundles as he handed them out; some barely a few pages thick, others nearly as hefty as dictionaries. "Justin, I know you're splitting your time, but I thought we could take advantage of your dual citizenship here. I'll give you copies of Neville's old case files, and I want to go a bit outside the box and see if you can find a connection. Maybe someone who's straddling like you and has a criminal record in the Muggle world but not here."

Justin took his with an uncertain frown, thumbing through the first few pages as his eyes narrowed. "I don't have access to police records there, Harry. I'm RAF and an MP, but those things are under different classifications."

"Search newspaper records, then," Harry replied, undaunted. "I know you can do that with ridiculous speed on that computer of yours. See if any of the names pop up, particularly in regards to recent prison releases or assassination attempts."

"It's a long shot," Justin muttered, half to himself, "but I'll give it a go. I think I might have better luck actually on the conspiracy boards; the ones who're dismissed as nutters for believing in what's right under their noses. Secret underground societies of sorcerers covered up by the government," he made a noise too dark to properly be considered a chuckle. "The things some people will believe…."

There was an uncomfortable titter from the little group, no one sure if they should laugh at what wasn't quite a joke, but Harry broke the awkwardness almost immediately, picking up the next assignments from the stack at his side. "Demmy, you're our medical specialist. I want you overseeing the autopsies of the Longbottoms and reviewing the previous autopsy files. Saz, I need your eyes at the actual crime scenes, you're going with me. Ron, you and Brian have the Dellingworth case – he'll fill you in – and Neville, you're taking Zach's previous load and starting at Malfoy Manor at noon."

Neville was pleased to see that the file in question was already at the top, what he assumed were the most pertinent details neatly marked to glow with a subtle orange halo of light, but the handwriting was every bit as indecipherable as he had remembered. Long, vaguely wavering lines with spikes and dots almost at random, it looked more like Arabic than English, and he was grateful that Harry seemed to know that the pages themselves weren't offering much at first glance. "Original Medinicci," he pointed to a bit that yes, could possibly be an M and did contain three dots. "Reported stolen yesterday morning, so I doubt he'll be happy we haven't gotten there yet what with people distracting us by dropping dead."

The sarcasm directed at his old rival was unmistakable, but it vanished before anyone could comment as he stood, looking around the circle of officers already immersed in their newly-issued tasks. "Any questions straight off?" No one answered, and he nodded briskly, adjusting his glasses and taking the last – and, Neville noticed, largest – sheaf from the desktop, this one with his own name marked in the upper corner. "Okay, then. I'll be in my office until ten, and after that you can just write me up as usual."

It took a moment for the oddness of the statement to sink through the casual tone, but by the time Neville looked up curiously, Harry was already gone, and he turned to Demelza. "Write him up?"

"The idea was from our Galleons," she explained distractedly, not looking up from what he wished he couldn't see was a photograph of a woman's nude, nearly emaciated body stretched on the heartless steel of an examining table. "The notepads we use…I might have one more back at my cubicle, but here, I'll show you." She flipped the file closed and fished her notepad from her pocket, but not before he caught a glimpse of the name he had wanted to pretend it wasn't. "The last page is charmed. You write the person's name at the top, and if they have one too, whatever you write below that will appear on theirs. It erases after a couple of minutes or if you write back, but it gets hot like the coins did to tell us we have a message."

"That's brilliant," he smiled weakly, not wanting her to know that he had seen the photograph, much less that it had any effect on him. It couldn't. He'd decided to do this, after all, and wasn't every victim they had ever dealt with _someone's _family? "You're really taking it the next step."

"Tony's work. We're all grateful we didn't lose him to the – Commander?"

He didn't even hear her confusion, all thoughts of clever spellwork or disturbing photos forgotten as he spotted a figure with impeccable posture and sleek black hair already headed for the exit. Neville shouldered past her, catching the other officer's arm even as his hand closed over the doorknob. "Justin! Wait!"

One eyebrow arched a fraction as he turned back, as if unable to fathom a reason Neville might want to detain him. "Harry's already given me your files, dear chap. I'm quite set."

Neville dropped his voice to a whisper, hoping that it wouldn't carry too far in the packed office. "I need to talk to you about what _you _have."

The grey eyes widened, and his expression of sudden comprehension was nearly comical, though his words became even more clipped and polite in a way that, although Hannah had long told him was a sign of discomfort, had never ceased to drive him a bit mental. "Ah. Yes. Your family. Indeed."

"Ah, yes, my family indeed," Neville repeated, and his grip on the other man's sleeve tightened, uncaring whether he wrinkled the wool or even bruised the flesh beneath. "_Where are they?"_

A faint flush appeared on the high cheekbones, but whether it was pain or just being increasingly put out he couldn't determine. "Now, you know I can't tell you that. There's no need for a scene."

"I don't do 'scenes', either, Justin," Neville whispered coldly. "This is not a scene. There will not be a scene. But if something has happened to Hannah or my babies, a scene will not even begin to describe how unhappy I will be. How do I know they're all right?"

"I thought you trusted – nevermind." He stopped himself with a little shake of his head. "Silly question. You're worried, of course. These are terrible times, and I do value the trust you placed in me, certainly, especially when you could have sent them to join the others at –"

Neville's fingers tightened further, and although he couldn't see anything, the flinch of pain he felt was unmistakable. "Are. They. All. Right?"

"Yes." Justin scowled, twisting his arm away and starting to rub at where he had been grabbed, then changing his mind and reaching instead for his trouser pocket, where he withdrew what Neville recognized as one of the ubiquitous miniature telephones that Muggles carried everywhere. "I was going to give this to you later when we had more privacy, but here."

He flipped it open effortlessly with one hand, extending it towards Neville to display the bright glass and score of glowing buttons. "It's already programmed with…but that doesn't matter. What's relevant to you is that if you hear it make a noise, open it up like this, push this button, and you can talk to your wife. If you want to ring _her_, push the green button twice and wait for her answer. If it stops working, give it to me, and I'll recharge it."

Neville took it carefully, his face carefully neutral even as his heart leapt at the chance to talk to Hannah despite his suspicions of both object and owner. "Can I use it now?"

"It won't work until tonight. Probably…lets see…two, five…eightish our time. She has to get where she's going to have the other one."

The clear calculation of timezones startled him, and he couldn't suppress the shiver at the staggering distance implied. "How far away have you _sent_ her?"

"Far enough that even if she makes a spectacle of herself she won't be found, and far beyond Apparation range." There was something icily matter-of-fact in the pronouncement, and Neville ran his thumb over the panel of buttons, trying to imagine how such a small thing, utterly devoid of magic, could possibly breach such a gulf. Would he be able to hear her at all? Would she sound like herself? Would he even be able to tell, shouting back and forth and trying to make out her answers, if it _was _her on the other side?

"I don't know if that makes me more or less comfortable," he admitted quietly.

There was a long pause, then Justin put both hands on Neville's shoulders, surprising him with the uncharacteristic intimacy of the gesture even before he looked up to see that the shuttered gray eyes were just as alarmingly open and vulnerable. "Do you think that Harry would ever betray Hermione?"

He shook his head, almost laughing at the suggestion despite how still on his guard he was. "Of course not."

"Ernie, Hannah, and I were every bit as close as those three," Justin whispered, but even that hushed, he caught a tight control to the other man's tone. "And I've already lost one of them; a man who was more than a brother to me. You have no idea what I would be willing to do to prevent losing my sister."

Neville held Justin's eyes evenly, his own restraint still in place, but allowing the utter conviction and subtle promise of retribution to show through. "No more than I would do to protect my wife and children."

"The better, then, that we are in alliance on that very thing." Justin smiled, once again breezily formal as he pulled back and brushed his hands smartly against the skirt of his robes, tugging everything back into place where imaginary wrinkles might have thought of occurring. "I would hope you always keep it in mind."

"Neville!" Before he could answer, Zach had appeared at his elbow, looking extremely hurried as well as very annoyed at both of them as he shot Justin a frustrated glare. "_Later, _mate! I've got almost no time to bring you up on…" He stopped, trailing off as he caught the look on Neville's face and the phone still clutched in his hand. "Are you okay?"

"Of course." Neville shook himself, pocketing the phone and turning his full attention to Zach as Justin murmured his apologies before leaving. "I'm sorry. I had some business with him. But let's just worry about the Malfoy case for now. Just give me the spell roots; I can work out the rest for myself."

Zach was already heading towards his cubicle, talking quickly without even looking back to make sure Neville was following him. "Four in the morning yesterday, Draco was woken by what he swears were footsteps. Adult, human. Wife accounted for in bed next to him, no guests, doors locked. Gets his wand, checks it out, nothing. Brings his kid to bed with them just to be safe, double-locks the bedroom door. Next morning, Mrs. Malfoy notices the painting missing, he calls us. We were a little busy."

"Approximate value?"

"200,000 Galleons."

"No pocket change, even for him."

"Definitely not. Not a little thing, either. Six by four, and that's feet." They had reached what was obviously his cubicle now, the walls thickly patchworked with photographs of Meg and the children interspersed with a variety of crayoned artwork. He began to rummage the cluttered surface of the desk, pocketing small items and bits of parchment as he talked, pausing only to snatch gulps of coffee from the steaming cup balanced precariously close to the edge. "Took the frame, too, which is another 30,000 and thick gilt over mahogany. Malfoy's estimated the total weight around close to 150lbs. We're expecting ransom, since there's no way the thief could sell it without attracting attention, but nothing on that front so far, and it's neither the most valuable nor personally significant piece in the house."

"You've alerted all the legitimate dealers?" Neville didn't have one of the official notepads yet, but he flipped over the stack of files he had gotten from Harry, jotting down the information on the back with the stub of a pencil borrowed from the overflowing mug on Zach's desk. "Muggle too?"

"Yes on the former, no need on the latter. It's a magica portrait. Sotheby's would have a lot more awkward questions about oils that moved beyond just ownership rights. Haven't had time to visit the scene, though. Your par–" He stopped himself, looking horrified at what he had almost so casually said, but Neville waved it away.

"I know. It's okay."

Zach wasn't so easily brushed off, and he straightened, pushing the drawer closed with his knee as he turned somberly to Neville, all brusqueness and bustle gone. "No, it's not okay. And I should have said something sooner. You've lost half your family, Commander, and had to send the rest away. If there's anything Meg or I can do…if you want to stay at my place, maybe, so you aren't alone…."

The earnest generosity of the offer made him uncomfortable, and it was difficult not to look away. "Your family's been hit too, Zach."

"It's not the same."

"Loss is loss," he replied firmly, not wanting to argue it further. "I'm just counting on you to help stop this bastard before anyone else loses someone."

"I'll do everything in my power."

"That's all any of us can do. And now," he pointed towards the door, "I think you're going to be digging for dirt on our favorite reporter?"

"About time someone turned the tables on her." Zach gave a downright vicious little smile. "You never know, if I find something good, I might just have to write my own tell-all." He checked his pockets again, then returned to rummaging for something, jerking his head vaguely back towards the entrance. "Saz's cubicle is the first on the left. She should have the rest of what you need to get back into things here."

Neville took the cue to leave, and although the indicated cubicle was barely a few steps away and certainly well within earshot, it still took him off-guard when Sally-Anne was not only clearly waiting for him, but reached out just in time to grab the top piece of parchment where it was starting to slip off the stack in his hand. "How did you –" He stopped, feeling ridiculous as the unnaturally bright, featureless blue of her magical eyes glittered at him in amusement.

"Nevermind." Neville took the seat she offered him, although they had to angle their knees oddly to avoid knocking into one another in the space that had never been designed for two chairs, much less people in them. "I hope you aren't offended if it still takes a little getting used to."

"Takes a lot to offend me, Commander," she laughed. "If getting talked around by people like I'd lost my ears and wits rather than just my eyes for seven years didn't do it, you startling a bit isn't going to break my sensitive little heart."

"Thank you, I guess." He opened the files on the spot she had cleared for him, scanning over them as if the writing might have somehow become more legible in the last five minutes. It had not, but a possibility occurred to him, and he twisted to look at her again, wondering how to phrase his question without being rude, no matter what she had just said about not being easily offended. "So, what exactly can…well, I never quite got up the nerve to ask Moody what his –"

"Mine are a generation better than his," Sally-Anne interrupted proudly. "That's why they're restricted to Sorcerer Security Clearance only and I had to join the bloody greensuits to get them." She tapped her cheek, blinking deliberately, and Neville almost jumped back as they changed from blue to brilliant orange and back again. "Don't want these little pixies in just anyone's head, or we'd have a lot more work."

The complete ease of her manner about them was disarming, and he allowed the building fascination to show, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees and take a better look. He had seen her with them for two years now, but he had always tried not to make a big deal of it or to stare, but now he noticed that the whites weren't actually white, they were mother-of-pearl, and the striations of the iris were actually a perfect radial starburst. It was eerie, certainly, but also rather pretty in its way. "Then you really _can_ see through things?"

"Like the cute litte scar on your right arse cheek where you sat on that teacup when you were four?" His jaw dropped, at a loss for words as he felt his face explode into a violent blush, but she just laughed. "Don't worry, lovie. Just fooling with you."

He shook his head, unwilling to dismiss what had been far to specific – and _correct – _to be a guess. "Then _how…?"_

"Bottles found their way upstairs in the Room too, and it's not just lads that brag," she winked. "If I looked through your clothes, it wouldn't be the surface I'd be seeing, it'd be…" Her face fell, and she looked almost stricken. "I can't believe you never said anything, Commander."

"I don't understand what you mean." Neville looked down at himself, wondering even with magically enhanced vision what she possibly could have seen that would have been so obviously upsetting. "About what?"

"They really did tear your back all to hell, didn't they?" she said softly, reaching out to brush the tips of her fingers against his shoulder so gently that she seemed to be afraid the wounds were still fresh. "There's enough deep muscle scarring that I can _see_ it, and soft tissue doesn't show up easily. That's got to still hurt."

"Aches a little sometimes," he confessed, suddenly feeling twice as exposed as when she had teased him before. "No big deal. Long healed. But anyway, what else can they do?"

Thankfully, she understood that he didn't want to talk about it further, moving on as brightly as if it had never been mentioned at all. "Magnify, night vision, heat vision, magical fields and spell residue, and I can see through just about any kind of concealment charm, potion, spell, or transfiguration."

Neville let out a low whistle, genuinely impressed. "I can understand why they're restricted."

"It's enough just to _see." _There was something sensual in the way she spoke the simple word, shaping it on her lips like the name of her most dearly beloved._ "_Seven years of darkness, Commander. I was willing to do anything. I can never repay this._"_

He knew there was no way to pretend to understand that kind of loss, nor the relief of escaping what she had thought was a life's sentence, but he felt like he needed to say something, no matter how foolish. "If you can see something we'd miss, that's more than repayment enough."

"One more thing –" They both looked up, surprised to see Zach leaning over the edge of the partition.

"Aren't you supposed to be at the _Prophet_?" Sally-Anne asked.

"In a minute," he snapped, the rest of his words tumbling out in such a hurry that Neville could barely follow them. "Malfoy will probably go at you about the restrictions on the house. That's not our jurisdiction, so don't let him talk you into making any promises. And I've got the floo address of an art historian in there somewhere to give a second opinion on the value. And I've already contacted the insurance branch at Gringotts, they confirm that it's been in his family for two hundred years, but where they got it from in the first place is unknown. And he hasn't made a claim yet. And they also said they have two more by the same artist, so I'd check if there was any attempt made to –"

"But what about the moose?"

Her completely deadpan interruption stopped the babble immediately, but the two men's reactions could not have been more different. Zach paused only long enough to sputter a single rather foul name at Sally-Anne before vanishing from view, doubled over in helpless, gasping laughter. He was still laughing - barely able to collect himself enough to stagger to the door – as he left, and Neville stared in bafflement at the young witch who was grinning broadly. "The _moose_?"

"Stakeout," she said blithely, pushing back a strand of her short, blonde hair with a cheeky toss of her head. "Four in the morning. You had to be there."

He looked towards the door where he could almost still hear Zach's boyish laughter, despite knowing that the other man had already Apparated away. It gave him an odd pang of nostalgia for the camaraderie they had shared even in the midst of a job he had so often despised, the private language and in-jokes, even some of the truly black humor that anyone outside would have instantly declared a sign of serious mental illness. One side of his mouth turned up in a bittersweet smile. "I'm almost wishing I had been."

"You can stay, you know," she suggested tentatively. "Harry'd be thrilled to have another wand, and everyone knows that you were brilliant."

He shook his head as if dispelling a dream, turning back to the paperwork and trying to focus instead on the notes Harry had made in the margins here and there. "It doesn't matter if I was good at it. It's not who I am, Saz."

"All due respect," Sally-Anne corrected him softly, "but right now it is."

"I suppose you're right. What else do I have left?" Neville hadn't meant it to sound either so bitter nor so self-pitying when it had really just been a statement of dry fact, but thankfully, she didn't seem to read anything unnecessarily maudlin into it, and the look on her face was one of pride, not sympathy as she placed her hand over his.

"You have us, Commander. Whatever else we've become, we'll always be your DA."

TO BE CONTINUED


	8. Ad Docendum Ludius

_You'll contact me._

Malfoy's last words taunted Neville as he made his way up the front walk to the double doors of the Manor, and there was a childish, petulant part of him that wondered if he had orchestrated the whole thing, arranging the theft of the painting just so that he would be right. It was ridiculous, of course. Even if he _had_ planned it for the insurance money or somesuch, there would have been no way of knowing he would take the case from Zach. Still, it rankled, and it didn't help him look forward to the next hour at all.

Taking a deep breath, Neville knocked on the door, taking a step back and straightening his shoulders determinedly as he waited. He was here as a professional, first and foremost, and Harry's unpleasant suggestion that he take Malfoy up on the offer of help with the Wizengamot could wait for later.

It seemed to have been a very long time with no answer, and Neville had just raised his fist to knock again when the door was yanked open, and he thought it was to his credit that he did not knock anyway, considering that Malfoy's scowling face was now exactly where his fist would have been going. "Took you bloody long enough, Sm –" He stopped, the scowl turning to a look of abject astonishment. "_Longbottom? _What are _you_ doing here?"

"If it's such an inconvenience," Neville replied coolly, "I don't have to be here at all."

The gray eyes scanned his robes as if evaluating a fancy dress costume, and the confusion deepened. "You're back with the Aurors?"

"I thought you knew everything." He couldn't resist the jab, immature though he knew it was. "Your crystal ball miss that detail? Tea leaves not up to snuff this morning?"

Malfoy crossed his arms, the old, haughty sneer returning so easily that it seemed to have never left his lips."Very funny. Is this a social call, then, or are you here about the apparently minor detail that someone broke into my house?"

He sounded as though he were scolding a lazy house-elf, and Neville grit his teeth, smiling so tightly that it almost hurt. "I'm very sorry for the delay. We were a little bit busy."

"That I do know," Malfoy leaned against the frame of the open door, still not letting him in as he indifferently brushed a speck of something from one rolled-up cuff. "Hestia Jones – or whatever she was calling herself since she married that Muggle – and Skeeter."

"And my parents." He didn't know why he said it, he certainly wasn't making any effort to get sympathy from Malfoy, nor did he want it, but what he saw instead was the slow, curious lift of an eyebrow that was almost good enough to make the surprise seem uncaring.

"Murdered too? I thought they were –"

"You can read about it in tomorrow's paper like everyone else," Neville said dismissively, using what he knew would be the unexpected passivity of his own reaction to regain the upper hand and step smoothly past as if he had been invited in. The entry hall was exactly as he remembered it, no hint of anything out of place or damaged, and he drew his newly-issued notepad from his pocket, flipping it open as he looked around, taking in the various art on display. "Now, what happened with this painting of yours? Stolen, you said? Anything to make it stand out from the others? It seems you have quite a collection."

He had expected to get some snide remark in return, not to hear the door slam, nor to turn to find Malfoy on the red-faced edge of losing his temper. "This isn't about the painting, Longbottom! Someone broke into my bloody _house!_"

"They don't seem to have wanted anything beyond theft," Neville reminded him reasonably. It wasn't the first time he had dealt with an outraged homeowner in the aftermath of a robbery, and oddly, it was easier to fall back into that, but this victim didn't seem to want to allow easy.

"_This time!" _ Malfoy gestured wildly at the cathedral ceiling and expertly detailed walls surrounding them. "This Manor was built _centuries_ before the legal distinctions were written between 'Dark' and 'Acceptable' magic, and their lovely idea of banning me from association with Dark Magic has meant stripping so many of the fundamental built-in securities and replacing them with half-measures that the house is _fighting_ that I might as well leave my front doors open for every Assurance lunatic out there!"

"Assurance -?" He repeated, unsure that he had heard the word correctly even though Malfoy – like Justin and very much unlike himself – spoke all the more clearly when he was angry, enunciating until each syllable was etched on the air between them, p's and d's barbed, s's slicing.

"You really have buried your head in the sand, haven't you?"

"If it's a political thing you're talking about, yes, actually." Neville refused to rise to the accusation, choosing instead to take it as nearly a compliment. "I've been too busy trying to build a life for my family to worry about what other people are getting worked up over."

"For your edification, the Assurance idiots are a very nasty little fringe who don't forgive and don't forget." The anger was still there, but there was something else, the same shadow of a haunted, hunted animal that he remembered in the back of those same eyes behind a mask of cognac and bravado a decade ago. "They'd like to see everyone who ever had anything to do with Tom Riddle dead…and their families in order to 'stop the lineage of Dark Wizards.' "

It took him a moment to realize what was really meant by that, and his eyes widened as he thought of the towheaded child who had come running so eagerly to greet them before. And whom, he only now noticed, there was no sign of. "They'd go after Scorpio?"

"Scorpius," Malfoy corrected curtly. "Yes, Longbottom, they'd go after a three year-old." The disgust in his voice was thick, but it couldn't hide the fear that was even more obvious now as he turned his left arm to show the faint but still-clear scar of the snake and skull. "Can't take the chance that this is catching, you know. Already passed from father to son once, they say, and never mind any details about acquittals."

"That's…."

"That's why I'm not all that keen on being left to the court of public opinion if we reunify, or pushed next door to one of them in some tiny little commune without substantial protection if we consolidate." All signs of fear had been banished, and his smile was cruel triumph. "Are you starting to get it now?"

He was, and he didn't like it. There was a part of him that wanted to argue that he had never heard of this faction, that it was just ridiculous paranoia, but he was all too aware of how much anger some still harbored towards whoever they could find to blame for a world still scarred and bleeding from Riddle's attempted coup. He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly as he chose his words with care. "I still can't do anything about what kind of magic is allowed or not allowed on your estate, Malfoy, and you know that."

Malfoy snorted harshly, as if the answer had been expected. "Is it beyond you to at least tell me who robbed me and get my property back? Or is that asking too much as well?"

"You'll have to let me look around first." Neville drew his wand, making the first sweep for signs of lock-breaking or other intrusive spells before pausing, glancing back to Malfoy on an afterthought. "And I'd recommend you stop insulting me. If you're supposed to be so politically savvy, I think you'd know better than that. I _do _have other cases, and if you make this much more unpleasant for me, I can easily make them higher priorities. My tolerance for being messed with right now is not what it could be."

"I'm…" There was a long, unexpected pause. "I'm sorry."

It was so much the last thing he'd thought he'd hear and so _genuine _that Neville stopped mid-stride, one foot poised ridiculously a few inches above the bottom stair of the grand staircase. He turned slowly, half-expecting to see Malfoy sneering at him in mockery, but the blonde head was ducked, the pale hands twisting the hawthorn wand so hard the knuckles strained parchment-white. "You're _what_?"

"The painting was less than fifteen feet from the nursery door." He had to strain to hear the explanation, every word seemingly wrenched out against Malfoy's will. "I've sent him and Tori to her parents, but –"

He couldn't go on. He didn't need to. Neville heard himself finish instead, his voice a foreign-sounding monotone, equally quiet and solemn in the echoing hall. "-It's scaring the hell out of you to know how close 'could have been' came when you know there's people who wouldn't hesitate to hurt a baby just because you're the father, and you feel like a failure having to kick them out of their own home."

Malfoy's chin lifted, and the icy eyes were burning. "Whatever you think of me, Scorpius has done nothing."

The silence seemed to hold forever, then Neville slipped the notepad back into his pocket, looking not at the other wizard, but up the staircase towards where he knew the family had their private rooms. There was still no emotion in his voice, and it would only have been superfluous. "When I was with the DA, we worked a lot outside the boundaries of 'normal' spellcraft, but still not in what would be legally deemed Dark Magic. I can't and I won't make any promises about your larger situation, but once I'm done with the theft investigation for today, I'll see what I can do to protect his room and the one you share with your wife. You should be able to bring your family home tonight."

Malfoy's mouth fell open, and he couldn't have looked more dumbfounded if Neville had revealed the matching remains of a Dark Mark on his own arm. It was as if the thought of another parent's compassion itself was a foreign concept, and he shook his head slowly, his eyes narrowing suspicion. "I don't kn-"

"Most people," Neville interrupted, "would try 'thank you.'"

That only seemed to heighten the suspicion, and Malfoy crossed his arms again, his mouth pressed into a thin, tight line, the madly racing tumble of his thoughts almost visible as they sought the angle, the motive of this obviously unforeseen development. When he finally spoke, it was with a casualness that could only have passed for taking it in stride if he had been relying on voice alone. "You say you pride yourself on being blunt; what do you want in return?"

Neville answered honestly and at once, knowing he had nothing to hide and that if he _were _to look at this as a power play – no matter how he didn't want to and knew he needed to – that very simplicity was his best weapon at the moment. "I want an innocent little boy to sleep safely."

"That's all?"

"That's all. Anything else is separate."

He had meant the investigation, but Malfoy seized on it, the spark of the duel engaged in his eyes again with relieved familiarity. "Such as my previous offer?"

This was, he knew, the time to do what Harry had asked. To accept what was, if he came right down to it, help that he needed, no matter how he distrusted the source. And maybe Malfoy had a point. It might be better anyway to get that help from someone with whom there would be no mistaking interest for friendship or muddling friendship in interest, but Neville still couldn't make himself do it. He was supposed to say yes, but what came out instead was a slow, guarded "Maybe…."

Malfoy clearly took it as an ironclad yes, but whether that was his own insufferable certainty in his ability to lay a good trap or whether he could see through the non-committal answer to the truth of its distasteful meaning, he couldn't tell. Nor could he tell, for that matter, which of the possibilities he liked less.

Once again the gracious host, Malfoy swept his hand expansively over the entry and towards the stairs beyond. "Investigate whatever you need to today with my full coopertion." And without skipping a beat or altering his tone in the least from the arch authority of ownership, "I'll see you tomorrow morning at half-six to begin the other. We will fill out your questionnaire, and then you will return at half eleven for your first proper lesson in politics."

Neville frowned, recoiling a little from the presumption. "I didn't say yes, Malfoy."

"Nor no."

There really was no use in arguing any more, and they both knew it. Neville sighed. "Seven."

"All right, but don't expect breakfast in that case," Malfoy agreed serenely.

If he had to look at that smug face one more instant…. Neville only made a vague noise of agreement, starting up the stairs again, but again Malfoy's voice stopped him. "And Longbottom?"

Slowly, dreading what it would be this time, he turned back, making no effort to hide his exasperation, nor his desire to just get the hell _on _with it and start his investigation into the reason he had theoretically been called there in the first place. "_Yes, _Malfoy?"

"Thank you."

OOO

The flat was tiny and the furniture a haphazard assortment of cheaply obtained, but it was far cozier than Neville had expected for a twenty-four year-old bachelor, even one raising a young daughter. They were little touches, not quite what one would see from a witch, but imitating them with the inexpert and makeshift deliberation of a child tracing cursive in crayon; bright pillowcases hung as curtains over the miniature kitchen window, a chipped teacup of charmed flowers in the center of the table, mismatched furniture transfigured to all be the same color.

Hannah had once observed that people were always reflected in where they lived, so Neville supposed that it shouldn't have been a surprise that Ricky King had much the same air of make-do domesticity, his robes clean and neat but hanging a bit too loosely on his thin frame, his conservative haircut two weeks overdue. Still, the smile was warm, if a little baffled as he waved his unexpected guest inside. "Been a while, Commander. Saw you at the memorial, but we didn't have much chance for a catch-up, did we?"

He didn't want to tip his hand too early, so Neville merely nodded, returning a pleasant enough smile of his own. "No, we didn't."

"Heard about your Gran." Ricky started to sit down on the arm of the sofa, then stopped, offering it to Neville as he took a seat on the understuffed armchair instead. "Rough, that. You must miss her." The words were almost dismissive, but the look in the blue eyes was of understood grief.

"Not so much time to, really," Neville admitted, crossing one leg casually over his knee as he leaned back into the really quite comfortable sofa, watching the other man carefully. No overt signs of guilt in his body language - he seemed to think it was truly just a casual visit, despite the green robes – but something was definitely bothering him. "You, though, is this the first time you've been away from Nat?"

"Making me a bit mental already," Ricky laughed tightly. "Have to tell myself there's no point sending half-dozen owls the first day when it'd just drive Sue off her wand." His eyes fell on a small, framed picture of the laughing girl who looked so much like her mother that it sent a cold chill up Neville's spine, and a bit of aching self-deprecation slipped into his tone. "And I suppose she knows well enough how to take care of a little lass. Probably better than me."

"You look like you're doing all right." He paused, pushing back the reluctance to end the awkwardly innocent smalltalk, but knowing he couldn't ignore the reason for his visit indefinitely. His voice lost all casualness, and he leaned forward, searching the other man's face intently. "Which is why I don't understand, Ricky. What's going on with you?"

Ricky froze, his eyes flicking to the emblem on Neville's chest for a self-betraying instant, then he swallowed hard, trying to hide his discomfort in a bitter shrug. "What's there to understand, sir? Got laid off. Dole's nothing, not from the Ministry." He made a dark, scoffing noise. "Thirty Galleons a month? When'd they set that, you suppose? 1950? Covers the rent and naught else, that."

"Haven't you talked to Sue?" Neville pushed gently. "You're DA; we help each other out. She might be able to help you find work -"

Another harsh noise, and Ricky gestured to his right leg, making a face. "No one wants a single Dad with a bum leg, not when there's so many able-bodied wizards going for the same jobs."

"—or loaned you something to see you through," Neville continued as if he hadn't been interrupted, but the gentleness was gone, replaced by the hard disapproval of an officer. It was a voice long unused, but the capacity for it was scarred into him as deeply as any other remnant of that year. "There's no bloody reason for you to do what you did."

"I don't follow, Sir." It was a lie, the wide eyes and tight shoulders said so even if he hadn't already known, but if he wanted it spelled out, so be it.

"The painting, Ricky," Neville said sharply. "The one stolen from Malfoy Manor yesterday night. I know it was you."

All traces of color vanished from the already-pale cheeks as Ricky's back stiffened. "That's –"

"I'm sure you thought you were being proper clever," Neville interrupted, not wanting to hear whatever excuse or ridiculous argument was about to come. "Gypsy, Greek, and Creole magic…confuse the heck out of the Aurors, right? Thought they wouldn't even recognize it, I bet."

He crossed his arms, leaning back against the couch, but the eye contact never wavered. "Except I know some thirty-odd people who know just those kinds of spells. And how to modify a Portable Portal. And then I'm looking for someone left-handed who has to switch to his right about five foot off the floor because he can't raise his wandhand any higher than that…someone who leaves footprints in the flowerbeds when he's checking for lights in the windows that say he's got a bit of a limp to the right leg? How many wizards do you think fit that, Ricky? Because I could only think of one."

There was a long silence, then Ricky's shoulders fell with a shudder, his hands twisting the fabric at the thighs of his trousers as he tried to sound more resigned than the fear the choked rasp to his words revealed as true. "You're here to arrest me, then."

It was true, that was why he had come, but there was something so broken about the young man sitting in front of him now that he shook his head, wondering if there had been a part of him that had known all along that he wouldn't be able to so easily take in one of his own. "I'm here to get the painting back. And more important, to find out what in Merlin's name possessed you. You're not acting like it was Imperius."

"No," Ricky admitted miserably, but there was no further explanation, even though Neville waited almost a minute. Instead he just continued to stare at the floor, looking like someone who had just lost a battle – no, a war – that had gone on so long there was no more capacity to fight, only pray for the mercy of the victor.

"Then _what_?" Neville urged again, beginning to grow frustrated with the defeatist silence. "And don't tell me it's money problems. We're all having money problems – hell, _I'm _having money problems – but we haven't all become thieves."

"C'mon, sir…it's _Malfoy." _Ricky looked up, and he was somewhat relieved to see that a rush of anger had pushed the resignation from his features. "Bloody _Death Eater_, and he's sucking caviar in that posh house when I'm trying to give my kid something half nutritious out of cheap tins and keep the landlord off the step…I'm shocked he even noticed the stupid thing gone. He's got plenty. I'll give it back if he misses it so bad!"

"You're right about that," Neville agreed firmly. "I know you haven't been able to shift it yet…but that doesn't answer my question. Why didn't you go to Sue?"

"She's helped." It was a hollow non-answer, not quite a condemnation, but saying so clearly that her help had been woefully inadequate that his eyes narrowed suspiciously. He knew Susan too well to believe that she truly could have left a DA veteran in a situation so desperate that he could have been driven to this.

"If I went to her…."

Neville hadn't meant it as a threat, but Ricky reacted as if he had drawn his wand, rearing back, his mouth dropping open in horrified betrayal as he shook his head violently. "I can't go to Azkaban, Commander! I'm all Nat has!" He stood, beginning to pace rapidly in the close confines of the tiny sitting room, his arms clutched tightly over his chest as his voice rose to a high, anguished plea. "If he gets his painting back, can't we just say it was a mistake? A dumb, desperate, angry mistake and let it go?"

"I'd be rather worried what dumb, desperate mistake you're going to make next. Ricky…." Neville had stood as well, wanting to calm this strange outburst, but when he put his hand on the other man's shoulder, he drew it back almost at once, startled. "Ricky, you're shaking!" It wasn't just emotion, either, it was a deeper, more uncontrollable trembling, and when the younger wizard's face turned up to his, he could see more closely the dark circles beneath his eyes, the faint sheen of sweat over the pallor that was more than fear. "You're _sick_! Why haven't you –"

Ricky made no effort to pull back or look away, and there was a disconcerting familiarity to the _need _in his eyes. It was like a Time-Turner, and he could have been fourteen again, struggling not to break under the tyranny that was crushing even those who were technically adults and turning to his Commander as the source of strength he'd needed to be so far beyond his own limits. "I'm just trying to get by. That's all I'm doing. I don't care about…but I can't…" His voice choked, the desperation bleeding into the tears that suddenly appeared in his eyes and spilled over the too-sharp cheekbones. "They'll take my daughter. They'd take Nat."

It didn't feel strange at all to take Ricky into his arms, smoothing his hands along the protruding shoulderblades beneath the robes and whispering the assurance into the sweaty sandy hair. "No one's taking anyone's kids."

"They _would_."

"This isn't about 'they.'" Neville pulled away just enough to draw his wand, but despite Ricky's flinch, it was just to run it along the buttons of his robes and the shirt beneath, allowing him to peel them both away more easily. Tossing both across the room behind him without looking, he pushed up the sleeve of his undershirt, turning his arm to display the tattoo that he knew Ricky shared. "This is about us. You're talking to me, not those now."

Ricky took a long, shaking breath, pressing both hands hard over his face, but when he pulled them away, he was in control again, and there was a gratitude in the back of his eyes that showed the gesture had not gone unappreciated. "I'm not a cauldron freak, Commander." His words were quiet but strong. "I swear on my wand I'm not."

Neville nodded in understanding as the pieces fell into place, and he was careful to keep any sense of judgment out of his tone. "It's potions, then? That's where the money's going?"

"It's my fucking _pain _medication!" The anger was back in his exclamation, but it wasn't directed at Neville himself, rather everything symbolized by the discarded pile of green wool that Ricky's hand snapped towards like the casting of a curse. "Take the fucking _pain potions _from a fucking wounded soldier and say it's the thing to do, but see how many of those Ministry bastards live with a fucking Muggle bullet in their leg and a shoulder blown half to bits!"

"The Healers –" Neville began to argue, but a bit of laughter cracked from Ricky's throat, and he opened one of the kitchen cupboards, reaching to the very back to pull out a small, dusty vial.

"The Healers give me this. They say it's good enough." He tossed it across the room, and Neville caught it, examining the label and seeing that it was just a common Anti-Dolorous Draught, easily available from any corner Apothecary. "They're talking out their wands…but Susan, when I went to her about them taking the stuff I really need, they told her it wasn't necessary any more. Told her it was all in my head. So I should be fine."

His voice had risen to a shout, and he began to pace again, all the rage and helplessness boiling to the surface. "Because it's in my head that this doesn't do shit! It's in my head when I'm sending an owl to my boss because I can't get off the couch and I'm dripping sweat and my five year-old has to bring me a bag to sick in!"

"So you're buying it on the black market, aren't you?"

"What am I supposed to do?" Ricky threw both hands into the air in exasperation. " I can't get Disability when the Healers say I should be fine. If I don't have it, I don't function. If I don't function, they take Nat. If they find out I'm taking illegal potions, they take Nat. If Sue finds out where her money's going, they take Nat. I do something stupid to get the gold, they take Nat! Everywhere I turn, I'm hexed!"

Part of him shared Ricky's anger, but just agreeing would do nothing about it, and he tapped the vial against his palm, thinking. "Can you make what you need yourself?"

"Rachel used to make it for me. I don't have the touch with it…too fiddly." He seemed a bit embarrassed by the confession, then shrugged. "Not that the ingredients are any more legal to come by when you're not knicking from the school."

There was another pause, and a strange tumble of emotions played across Ricky's face – fear by far the most prominent among them – before he seemed to some kind of decision. With what Neville recognized all too clearly as a silent prayer for fate to be kind, the younger man drew his wand, tapping the back of the couch, and a small opening appeared which he reached into, withdrawing a dark blue glass bottle with a broken wax seal.

His hand was shaking as he extended it, but the trust in his eyes was as absolute as Neville had ever seen, and he took it with a small nod of respect. Cautiously, trying not to breathe in too much of the fumes, he uncorked it and took a sniff, his eyes widening as he recognized the honey-sweet scent. "Ricky, this is almost pure poppy extract. That stuff's dangerous. Addictive."

The tables had turned now, and now it was Ricky who looked so much older than his years, smiling almost indulgently at his Commander's warning. "Give me a better answer, sir."

Neville re-corked the bottle, handing it back and taking the time as it was returned to its hiding place to consider his options. There really was no easy solution, but what he had would have to be enough for the moment. "Give me the painting. You're within the five days where stolen property can be legally returned anonymously, and no one was injured. But I want your word that _nothing _like this will _ever _happen again."

"No offense, but what fucking good does that do me?"

The anger in the response was still not really aimed at him, he knew, and Neville resisted the urge to snap back as he knelt to collect his robes, but it was harder than he had expected to stand again without hesitation. He felt tired, far beyond what could be accounted for by the meager sleep of the previous night; tired and very, very old. "It keeps you out of Azkaban. As for the rest…" He sighed. "How much do you have?"

"Barely any. I've been rationing myself because I can't afford any more." Ricky bit his lip, struggling visibly to find the line between pain and practicality. "Maybe two days? Three?"

"That's two days for me to find you a better answer." He closed the last of the brass buttons, then extended his hand. "And you have my promise I will."

Ricky took the handshake, returning it with more strength than he had expected, but there was a quizzical tilt to his head. "You're not angry?"

"I don't know if I even should be," Neville answered bluntly. "My best friend went soaring a lot further off the deep end than you have, and I've forgiven him. I can certainly forgive you."

Even for all that he had worn his anger and fears openly, it wasn't until now, when his face collapsed into the first _real _smile he had seen, that Neville truly understood exactly how much Ricky had trusted him with the truth beyond his foolish crime. There was the faint shimmer of tears in the blue eyes again, but this time, they were tears of relief. "Thank you, Commander."

The depth of the gratitude was unnerving, even though he knew it was for what he hadn't done as much as any promise. "Don't thank me until I have an answer."

Ricky opened his mouth to answer, but a strange flapping noise cut him off, and he frowned in bafflement. "What's that?"

Neville knew what it would be even before he turned, and it was with a deep, resigned sigh that he picked up the familiar scroll as the raven vanished like its fellows into nothingness. "It's a headache with wings."

OOO

Luna didn't age. She had grown up, certainly – the soft, ample curves beneath the flowing batiked robes belonged to no teenage girl – but her eyes were still unlined and just as dreamily keen as they had ever been, her smile still the same. He wondered if it was just a trick of his memory, but when he knew the dusting of gray at his temples had become proper streaks and the face that met him in the mirror so often seemed to be approaching forty rather than thirty, it was a comfort to see someone whom the years hadn't yet taken hostage.

He took her hand in both of his, pressing it gratefully. "Thank you for meeting me on such short notice."

She shrugged, indicating it was nothing as she motioned him into the sprawling, whimsical structure she was unendingly rebuilding from the remains of her original tower-shaped home. From anyone else, he would have thought he was being given the cold shoulder, but Luna's silence didn't bother him, and he simply followed behind, taking a seat at the kitchen table as she sorted through the heaping piles of who-knew-what on the counters before she finally spoke, still not looking up at him. "You look seventeen again."

There was a sadness to the observation, a reminiscence too unpleasant to be called bittersweet, yet without any sense of rebuke or disapproval. Neville puzzled over what she could have meant for a bit, then gave up, knowing it couldn't be literal but at a loss for what it _was_. "You don't make that sound like a compliment."

"It's not," Luna agreed calmly. "You look like you're pushing too hard, carrying too much. Is it your Gran?"

"It's a lot of things." He leaned forward, wanting to get up and go to her, to have this conversation with one hand resting at the small of her back and his face against her hair as he tried to snatch morsels of whatever she had started working on. Except not really. He wanted Hannah, wanted _their _way of sorting through tangles like this, but Luna was worth so much more than being jammed into another woman's vacancy, and he shook his head, dismissing the urge that didn't belong to her anyway.

Neville had come to her specifically for a reason, and he reminded himself of it now, watching the bright sunlight through the kitchen window catch the little silver ornaments and raw gems woven into her hair. "It's why I wanted to talk to you…you've got a gift unlike anyone else for cutting through all the mess and getting to the obvious, and I think I need that now."

Now she did turn around, tipping her head and tapping one finger against her chin as she studied him openly. "I think you need lunch and a cup of tea."

He started to protest that there was no need for her to go to the trouble, but his stomach interrupted with an embarrassingly loud growl that confirmed how long it had been, and he laughed sheepishly. "That too, probably."

"Of course. An empty stomach isn't going to help you think any more clearly." She waved her wand over the table, and it split down the middle, opening like a giant clamshell set on end and swallowing the things that had been piled on top. "I hope you don't mind the mess. We're renovating. Rolfe wants an atrium, and I think it would be lovely, don't you?"

Now that he had somewhere to start, Neville saw how much of the eccentric and ever-changing collection was plant catalogues and blueprints, stacks of pots and empty trellises. His smile widened in irrepressible excitement as he thought of what manner of bizarre and exotic flora would capture his friend's fancy. "I'm usually in favor of anything with plants."

"Yes, you would be. Maybe you can look it over for us when we're further along?" Another wave of her wand, and a detailed schematic extracted itself from a teetering stack near the door, floating over to him. "I'd love to have your expert opinion."

If she had done it on purpose to distract him, he didn't care, and Neville welcomed the brief respite from his larger problems as he spread the plans on the table in front of him, bracing his hands on either side and leaning over them eagerly. Southern exposure…coming off from the bedroom like that was odd, but who was he to judge that for them…options for mist or drip watering…decent if imperfect drainage…. "I can tell you right now you should double-pane your glass. It'll make it much easier to control the temperature, and you'll have a lot less trouble with fogging."

"Oooh, thank you." Her large, pale eyes lit up as if he had offered her the solution to all the problems of the universe, and she held out a brilliant pink teacup towards him in both hands like giving tribute. "Here's your tea. It'll be a few minutes on the rest."

Neville took it, bracing himself not to make a face at the taste –whatever it was – but she had already turned away again before he took the first sip. "Do you mind talking while I cook?"

"It's nice, actually." He had only meant that he didn't mind at all, but to his own surprise, it applied to the tea as well. While it was arguable that all of her infusions had great magical or medicinal value – at least by Luna's reckoning – they could often be flavors that took…well…_getting used to._ This one wasn't bad; a smoky, slightly cinnamon-clove taste with a bit of lemon, and he resolved not to ask what was in it.

"I think so." She lit the stove with her wand, the oil in the pan beginning to sizzle almost immediately as she ran her hand along the bundles of herbs hanging from the ceiling, plucking a leaf here and crumbling a few buds there. "Kitchens are such nourishing, creative places that the energies are really suited to unburdening yourself. And, of course, you don't have to look at the other person."

"Everything's happening at once. There's this murderer out of nowhere who's gotten half my family and we've no idea who or why, and the diary pieces that might not be diary pieces, and I've had to go back with the Aurors, but I'm also joining the Wizengamot next week…." Neville started slowly, intending to select his words with care, but maybe Luna was right about kitchens, maybe there was some form of Veritaserum in the tea, maybe it was something about knowing she was the kind of person who never judged harshly, or maybe he simply needed to let it out that badly, but once he had begun, he couldn't seem to stop.

"…Which I _don't _want to do but I really have no choice, and I've wound up having to turn to _Malfoy _for help with that because everyone I can trust who knows anything about politics has way too many opinions and now I've just found out that one of our old friends is in a terrible mess that I've promised to help him out of, except I have no idea how I'll do that, and I need Hannah more than I can even say, but I've had to send her I don't even know where and…and it's all _right now_." He shook his head, turning the cup in his hands and watching the iridescent flicker of the glaze as he tried to make sense of it all. "These last two weeks. I know it's been _coming _longer than that – some of it, anyway, but-"

"I went to Guatamala this winter."

The interruption was so bizarre, even for Luna, that he was sure he hadn't heard correctly. "_What_?"

"I found a new species of beetle that I'm hoping to write a paper about in time for the Mythozoologic Conference in October," she continued lightly, cracking an egg into the mixture in the pan, "but I also saw ash plumes rising from Pacaya – it's a volcano."

Neville gave up trying to make sense of it, nodding slowly. "All right…."

"They can be dormant for millions of years, you know. Even the best scientists say they're exinct. Sometimes the craters even turn into beautiful lakes, with all kinds of forests around them, and people build houses, towns, even cities." Luna paused, tasting a spoonful of something from a small, leather-capped crock, then adding that to the sizzling concoction as well. "It's perfectly safe, too, at least for many, many generations. Then there are little plumes, small earthquakes, but they just rattle the dishes a bit, and no one's much alarmed."

"Because the volcano's extinct?"

"And most of the time, the little earthquakes don't mean anything, and the steam vents are very nice places to have saunas. The minerals are wonderful for the skin." Her smile fell in a regretful shake of the head, but it still didn't seem any real sorrow, more the acceptance of something inevitable. He wanted to ask her what any of this had to do with him, but he had learned in their long friendship that she always had a point, however strange her tangents might seem, and he remained quiet while she scooped the apparently-completed contents of the pan onto a plate, topping it all with a few more pinches of what looked like sage.

"Then, of course, it erupts, and all those people die because they say there wasn't any warning. That's what happened to Pompeii, you know." Luna set the plate in front of him, summoning a fork from a drawer on the other side of the kitchen and pulling out a chair for herself, though she had only a cup of the same dark, reddish tea. "The entire city was destroyed, and Herculaneum too, even though there'd been smoke for years and for about a week the animals had been mental. But Vesuvius was extinct."

There was a finality to the last statement, but try as he might, he still couldn't see what she was getting at, and he smiled ruefully at her. "I follow what you're saying about the volcanoes, but I can't say I see what that has to do with my situation. As far as I know, there aren't any volcanoes – extinct or otherwise – in England."

She thought about it a moment, her lips pursed, then took a long sip of tea. "Well, there's the Cheviot Hills and more or less the whole Isle of Skye, but that's beside the point. I think the wizarding world is smoking."

Now that he had a chance to really look at it, what she had made for him looked like some kind of hash, but not any kind he had ever eaten before. He was reasonably sure he could identify potatoes, possibly mushrooms, and the bits of egg, but the pale grayish meat and several other chopped morsels were completely unknown. He pushed it around with his fork, not wanting to be ungrateful, but unable to help thinking of certain previous experiences with Luna's more creative culinary endeavors. "What _is_ this?"

He had tried to sound simply curious rather than repulsed, and she didn't react as if she were offended, propping her chin in her hands and grinning at him like a schoolgirl with a secret. "Is it tasty?"

Carefully, not quite willingly, he scooped up a small forkful. There was a chunk that looked distressingly gelatinous, and he closed his eyes, refusing to examine it any closer and shoving it into his mouth before he could reconsider. It was rather like a casserole, actually, the meat was tender and juicy, and despite the slightly fishy smell, it didn't taste like any kind of seafood. There was sage, definitely, and garlic and pepper and…his eyes opened again, regarding the plate with a startled new respect before he managed to answer. "Yes."

Her smile widened with just the slightest hint of tease. "Then why does it matter?"

She had a point. She _always _had a point, and he dug in, feeling silly for having interrupted her. "You're right. Go on."

Luna nodded, picking up again as if she had never paused. "We think that just because everything's been good for so long that it's all right, and we want to pretend that Riddle was just a teeny rumble, but Daddy's seen this coming for years. It's why we've tried to look at the lost wisdom; to see if there's anything we've forgotten as a people that can help us when it all erupts."

"So you think all of this happening now…?"

"I think we're passed rumbles and smoking. I think everything now is ash in the air, and any minute we're going to have the whole wizarding world explode beneath our feet."

Neville considered the warning, so dire despite the calm delivery, but it wasn't easy to accept. Of course the wizarding world had problems – he knew that better than most – but she was talking about something much bigger, if he understood correctly, and it was just too much to say that a struggling economy and a few ignorant politicians were the end of the world. "You sound like Justin."

The comparison didn't show any signs of surprising her, and she shrugged. "People say he's mental, too."

Neville decided that the better part of valor was definitely not to comment on that, nor on Luna's own history of somewhat outlandish conspiracy theories. Instead, he settled on something that was perhaps a bit less loaded. "Then you think Unification is the answer?"

She answered without hesitation and with no longer any hint of a smile. "I don't think there is one."

"That's just lovely to hear."

"Whatever happens, everything is going to be different, and a lot of people are going to be hurt. All change is destructive, but good things always come from it too. It's balance." She leaned forward, motioning at the meal in front of him. "Seven Carpathian frogs died for your sausage, but it gives you the strength you'll need to go on and help people, and I know you will, Neville."

Neville swallowed hard past the bite that had seemed to double in size in his throat, trying not to look at how far he had already gone towards cleaning his plate. "I'll pretend I didn't hear that."

She didn't seem to notice his sudden nausea, reaching across the table to brush his hair back from his forehead in a gesture so intimate it ached. "But you _will _help. You're good at it, and you've always been stronger than you think you are. You just have to accept that you can't prevent the eruption, and you can't prevent people from being hurt by it. It's the cycle of civilizations. They rise, they fall. It's not a bad thing if it's our time to fall."

_You've never really felt like this was your civilization anyway, _he thought petulantly, but he didn't really feel up to arguing her when there was such an uncomfortable whisper in the back of his mind that suggested this might not be entirely in the same league as the Rotfang Conspiracy. "Maybe so. But I don't intend to leave my friends in the path of any lava."

He tried to take another bite, but he couldn't force himself, and he checked his watch instead, telling himself that it wasn't rude to leave lunch unfinished when he had wasted too much time already. There were things to be done, whether the world was ending or not, and he had been right if nothing else that she had shown him a different view.

Neville pushed his plate back and stood, the regrets on the tip of his tongue, but she waved them away as unneeded. "Did I help?"

"I…think so."

He bent to give his old friend a quick, sincere hug, but she didn't let him go easily, her surprisingly strong hands holding his shoulders as she stared deeply into his eyes. What she saw there, he didn't truthfully know, but it seemed to satisfy her at last. "All right, then. And here, take these with you." She let him go, flicking her wand at the countertop, and the rest of the dish she had prepared scooped itself into a piece of butcher's paper, wrapping quickly into a tight parcel that she pushed into his hands. "Just because we're all standing on a volcano doesn't mean we don't need to eat."

Luna didn't like goodbyes, claiming they were bad luck, but he knew that this was her way of sending him along with her best wishes, and he smiled as he tucked the parcel into his pocket, even though he knew he probably wouldn't be able to eat it. Someone else at the Auror office would, certainly, as long as he didn't tell him what it was.

He decided to walk to the edge of the property before Disapparating, allowing himself the indulgence of the meandering path through her exotic gardens, but his attention refused to stay on the plants around him. Instead, he found his mind echoing with Justin's voice, with Hermione's, the forboding omens twisting through Luna's metaphor and the melodies of his mother's own warnings.

_And the General sat and the lines on the map moved from side to side…_

Neville stopped beside a large Whisperberry Bush, licking his lips nervously as he reached into his pocket for the scroll the raven had brought. He had agreed with Harry that they shouldn't give in to the impulse to read them, leaving them for someone more impartial to interpret and sparing themselves the second-guessing of things that had happened before they were born, but that had been before so much. Perhaps because it had so much less effect – or so he had always thought – on his life than Harry's, but he had never given particular thought to Dumbledore's complicated plans and manipulations. Now, though….

He watched one callused thumb slip beneath the wax seal as if it belonged to someone else, shattering the fragile barrier and letting the parchment unfurl with a crisp, crackling whisper in his hand. There it was, just as he had known it would be; half a torn and age-yellowed page, the same spidery hand telling the tale of the spider's web or safety net woven so long ago. There was no date on this one, he had been given the bottom half, but he read the words anyway, his throat tight on the awareness of the forbidden.

_amateur is always most easily known by their concentration on preserving their own pieces. A master, it has been said, is one who does not even see the board or consider their own moves. All of the master's focus is on his opponent and the moves he will make, but more importantly, on how one can control those moves rather than one's own. A simple enough principle in theory, and even in practice, but I fear that this is no longer a game, if it ever was. _

_I have already made the error too many times of underestimating Voldemort, and I cannot do so again. He has us in Check, and it may already be too late to prevent Checkmate, but if it is not, I cannot accept that as the product of my unwillingness to act. Yet even in our game, they do not give the pieces faces. It would, I am learning, make the game nearly impossible to play. Just tonight, I have needed to place two of my pieces in great jeopardy, and I cannot concern myself with what benefit young Shacklebolt's talent might bring the world someday when I need him to block the black pawn from jeopardizing my queen as I move her, in turn, to her own position for sacrifice. _

There was more, but Neville didn't see it. He didn't see the parchment at all any more, even as his fist crumpled it tightly back into his pocket. Instead, his mind's eye was filled with the familiar face of a friend, not as it was now, but as it had been nearly twenty years ago, round and flushed and wide-eyed with the thrill of his first near-brush with death. It was so unexpectedly vivid that he could almost see the flicker of the candlelight in Ron's eyes, feel the texture of his old flannel pajamas as his hands had clutched his knees in awestruck fascination at the daring tale. _Then I knew, and I was sort of scared, because she was so much _bigger _than me and all stone and stuff, and I thought I'd probably die, but I still wasn't all the way scared, because I knew it had to be done, you know? That's how chess is. _

They'd made a mistake. This wasn't a task for Anthony at all, brilliant though he was. The one they needed was Ron.

OOO

To his relief, despite the difficult morning, the rest of the afternoon progressed surprisingly easily for Neville. Malfoy accepted the return of his stolen painting with a not-that-bad-considering amount of fuss that anonymous really meant anonymous, and it had made him feel good to put the protective spells in place around the two bedrooms. Better still, the assault case had been wonderfully straightforward – the wife had confessed that the wizard who had attacked her husband had been her lover, so it was just a matter for the Enforcers and the divorce court now – and by half five, there was nothing left for the day but paperwork.

Sally-Anne had already left, and with the cubicle all his, Neville allowed himself to sprawl a little, pushing the chair all the way back against one wall and stretching his legs across the space to prop his heels against the desk while he balanced the report on his lap.

_Evidence Produced: Bruises to victim's face and upper torso, all victim's hair removed by magical means. Alopecius Hex found in examination of attacker's wand, abrasions to knuckles of attacker's rig_

"They ought give an extra couple inches of cubicle to any bloke over six foot, I say." Neville looked up, grinning as he saw Ron leaning casually over the top of the partition. "I've tried to tell Harry it's discrimination, but he's got his own office anyway. Git."

"Way to talk about your best mate, there."

"_As _his best mate, it's my prerogative and my duty," Ron corrected primly, coming around the edge of the partition to sit on the desk, shoving Neville's feet unceremoniously to the side. "Besides, he stuck me with a shit case."

"Think you can crack it?" Neville asked, and the interest in his voice seemed to surprise Ron, although it was more from the hope that Ron would have some free time than any particular worry about the details of the crime he was investigating.

"It's not the whodunit," Ron made a distasteful face. "_That _we know. But it's a sicko."

"Rape?"

"Worse. Kiddie stuff."

He could tell that Ron was trying hard to remain passive, even a little flip about it, and the lurch in his own stomach said all too plainly why. Certainly, he had heard of such deviants before, but he had never actually encountered one, and he wondered how, as a father himself, Ron could manage not to pummel his suspect into a very fine paste. "What kind of –"

"He's not actually assaulting the kids," Ron amended quickly. "Wouldn't be bloody sitting here if he was. I'd be in Azkaban for a list of Unforgivables long as my arm, and Callahan would have the cell next to me."

"Then what is it?"

"He's been using Transvisibility Charms and Disillusionment to get pictures of Muggle children undressing and taking baths and stuff like that. Then he slows them down and edits and messes with the lighting to make it look all sexy…if you can use that word on eight year-olds." Ron drew his wand, making an eloquent gesture at his lap that clearly suggested his recommended form of punishment. "_Hundreds _of the damned things in his house."

The thought of magic being used to violate – even indirectly – something as helpless as a Muggle child made him shudder. "But you caught him, right? Hotwanded?"

"First step," Ron cautioned. "Now we just have to find out if he's a lone creep, or if he has buddies he shares his twisted little collection with. Right now, though, his Solicitor's trying to get him off that he neither harmed a Muggle nor violated any law in _our _world, because they weren't pictures of wizard kids."

"It's still porno –"

"'Artistic nudes.'"

The contempt was clear in Ron's voice, and Neville shook his head, wondering if there had ever been a law written that someone hadn't found a way to twist and abuse. "Here." He waved his wand, duplicating his cup of coffee and levitating the second one to his friend. "You could probably use it. Want a distraction?"

Ron cast a suspicious eye at the pile of forms. "If you think you're getting me to fill out your –"

"Actually, I'd like to talk to you about a chess game."

The blue eyes over the edge of the cup widened immediately, and Ron swallowed too quickly, coughing and wincing as he accidently scalded himself. "Oh?"

Neville hesitated, unsure as to how to read the obvious surprise. "You…er…you _do _still play, don't you? I remember when we were kids…."

"Well, yeah, I play." Ron had turned quite a deep red, and he shifted uncomfortably, picking at the edge of his cup and unrolling the pasteboard lip. "I mean, I've managed to make Candidate Master, but that's not that big a deal and it's all by correspondence games. I don't actually know anyone I can play in person, so that's been a long time."

"You don't know anyone you can play in person," Neville pointed out firmly, "because you were just wiping the castle with us by third year…with the exception of Hermione, and that was only because your head wasn't functioning with her."

As he had hoped, the embarrassment had begun to fade, replaced with the first narrow-eyed signs of curiosity. "Is there someone you wanted me to play, then? You got a bet riding?"

"No bet," Neville corrected. "I want you to look at the letters Harry and I have been getting."

"Dumbledore's diaries?"

"Exactly. I got another one today, so that means Harry did, too." He tapped the copy he had made before turning the original over to Anthony. "Dumbledore keeps using chess metaphor to talk about his attempts to fight Riddle, and I was hoping you'd be able to read between the lines better than any of us. Really dig in and tell us exactly what he was trying to do."

"Okay…." Ron crossed his arms, brow furrowed in concentration. "But what does it matter if I can work out his strategy if they aren't real?"

"Because," Neville pressed, "the more information we can get from them, the better we can know if they _are. _Tony can validate things like the age of the pages, but if you can work out – oh, I don't know, that 'white knight' refers to Harry's dad or something – then we might have a few more avenues we can cross-reference. Like he talked about Shacklebolt being pitted against a black pawn in this one to protect his queen."

"He loved hidden meanings." The other man seemed to be talking to himself more than Neville, leaning back against the wall of the cubicle and staring off into space. "There _could _be a code, but more likely he was just using it to keep track, keep it…because if he…and you have to find a way to stay...seriously out of my league, though."

"I'm not asking you to beat him, Ron, just see if you can figure out if there was any real pattern to what he was doing."

"Don't doubt that." The answer came faster and more absolutely than he had thought it would. "Back then, he definitely had a plan, and it _worked_, whatever it was. Reckon that's why he was so totally thrown off when Fudge dropped a hex on him next go-round and why he didn't think he had to tell anyone anything. If it hadn't gone just right first time, he'd have had more backups and not relied so much on everyone reacting precisely like he assumed they would."

"But they _did_," Neville argued. "You've said yourself, the Deluminator –"

"_I _did. Harry did. Hermione did. To some extent Riddle and Snape did. The pieces he played gambits on directly. But he didn't account for you, for a lot of other people that could have jinxed the lot, and that's a sign of overconfidence when a player doesn't keep an eye on the whole board."

"You're doing it already." He smiled, flicking the copy of the letter across the cubicle. "I've already asked Tony to give you the others when you said yes."

One ginger brow raised cryptically. "Not a bad judge of how people react yourself. You sure you need me for this?"

"Absolutely." Neville took a deep sip of his own coffee, already returning to his forms and reports. "You play chess, I joust."

He could hear the surprise in Ron's voice, though he didn't look up. "Since when?"

"Not here." He finished the line he had started, dipping his quill again and reaching for his notepad to ensure he didn't miss any details on the Witness Statements section. "But it's not a bad sport for life either. Keep your seat, dig in your heels, and try not to duck when it's all coming straight at your head."

OOO

Ron was long gone, the office almost entirely deserted except for the sliver of light under Harry's door and the occasional memos that fluttered in from Tony downstairs, but Neville had long ago lost track of time. Some of the forms had changed in subtle but frustrating ways, and they kept rejecting him, regurgitating the ink with a maddening blink of "IMPROPER SUBMISSION" that meant he had to re-read carefully until he figured out that _Items Inventoried _was what had previously been _Items Confiscated _and each individual spell detected at a crime scene now needed its own separate attachment sub-document. And of course, Merlin help him if _everything _didn't have name, date, and case number at the top _and _bottom.

"I already filed one for the Levitation Charm!" He glared at the parchment venomously, aware that it was never a good sign when one started ranting at the inanimate objects out loud, but not really caring that much. "Don't you even dare tell me that I have to file for each and every time it's –"

The loud, jarring sound caught him completely off guard, and Neville jumped completely out of his seat, the wand yanked from his sleeve as he spun around, heart pounding. "What the _hell?"_

It came again, but it wasn't from behind him, it was from…his robes? He stared incredulously at the dark green garment draped across the back of his chair, wondering if someone was playing a prank on him, but at the third repetition of the sound, he realized what it was, and he lunged, scrambling frantically for the tiny Muggle telephone. By the fourth sound he had it, and by the fifth he had managed to get it open, his hands shaking as he held it up to his head as he had seen Justin do.

"Neville?"

Oh, Merlin, it was her.

Neville sat back down heavily, barely succeeding in finding the chair before his knees would have given out anyway. It was as clear as a Floo, as if she were no further away than across the building, and there was no question, none at all that it was Hannah. He swallowed hard, trying to clear his throat enough to speak, his fingers running over the hard silver plastic as if he could feel her lips beyond. "Hannah….how are…the kids…are they -?"

"You still have three of them, yes." He could close his eyes and see just the look on her face, the smile that was tired but tight and keeping her sense of humor because if she didn't laugh, she might cry. "That's because I love you very, very much."

Neville returned her smile, though he knew she couldn't see it, hoping she would hear in his voice as well that he understood what she hadn't said. " What happened on your trip?"

"I don't know how you did it, when you went to New York. They put us on a _plane_." She spoke the word as if she had been shoved into the belly of some revolting creature, and he winced, remembering his own encounter with that form of transportation when he had fulfilled Colin's last wishes. "The Muggle flying people were very nice about it, they seemed to know what they were doing with someone who'd never done it before, but oh, it was _terrifying, _Neville! The twins were…." Hannah stopped herself, sighing. "Nevermind. It doesn't matter. We're…well, wherever we are, we're all here in one piece, but I tell you right now, the only reason I'll ever do that again is to get back to you."

"Don't worry," he said quickly, "I'll never make you do it if I can at all help it." He wanted to ask where they were, but she had already stopped herself from telling him once, and he knew it wouldn't be fair to push, but he couldn't suppress his concerns completely. "Do you think you're going to be all right there? Without magic, or can you use it again? Are you staying with wizards or Muggles?"

"Muggles. They've been told I'm some kind of witness being hidden from retribution, and I guess we are, really, but I'll make do." Her voice dropped to a whisper, and it sounded oddly muffled, as if she were covering the device with her hand. "I'm just worried about the twins manifesting. They're about due, and I could feel Trev on the airplane. He almost went when it came off the ground."

Neville cringed, but he tried to keep his reply sounding casual. "We'll just keep our fingers crossed."

She didn't reply for several seconds, and that more than anything she could have said told him exactly how close a call it had been. Finally she spoke again, and he wondered if the forced lightness had been as apparent in his own voice. "What about you, love? Are you taking care of yourself? Not doing anything stupid, I hope. Has Harry made any progress?"

"I'm back with the Aurors, actually…."

"Neville! You _said –"_

"I'm just taking over Zach's cases so he can help," he cut in, wanting to stop her before he could be reminded of all the reasons he had quit in the first place, all the reasons he was trying to hard to ignore already. "They're really strapped, Hannah. They need all the help they can get."

"What about the Wizengamot?"

"I still start next week."

"You're going to run yourself ragged." He could hear the disapproval in her tone, but also the worry and love behind it, and he knew if she was there, she would be sitting so close to him, probably putting her hand on his, and his skin seemed to ache where her fingers weren't. This was all so strange, so close and near and wonderful and needed, yet still so far. An airplane. So very, very far.

"Neville, did you hear me? Don't brush me off. You always try to do too much."

He blinked, realizing how long he had been silent, but it took him a few seconds of floundering before he could pull back enough to answer. "A lot of MW's have other work."

"Justin –"

"Justin's trying to pull two _lives, _not two jobs," he interrupted firmly. "I'll be fine, really."

"I can find a way to make this thing ring Susan if I have to."

It was a warning, but she didn't really mean it – not yet, anyway – and he smiled. "No need for reinforcements."

"I'll decide that for myself." The smile fell from her voice into a gentle frown that should have come with a kiss. "You sound exhausted already."

"It's been a long day, that's all, and the paperwork has changed some. These forms have me proper hexed," he answered honestly. "Once I get the hang of them again, I'll be fine."

Hannah didn't argue him further, and he knew that at least for now, she had let it go. "Where are you staying?"

"Willow Creek for the next night or two – there's a few things I have to tidy up – but then Harry, Zach, Tony and I are all moving in to Zach's place until we can sort things out. It was Zach's idea, but we realized that it would save us all having to sort out how to muddle through on our own."

He had never thought it would be possible to hear someone's eyes widen. "The four of you alone? You're not going to turn it into a barbarian cave like the Room, are you?"

Neville couldn't help but laugh, despite how much he missed her. "How about if we promise to lick the bones mostly clean before we fling them to the beasts?"

She giggled back. Such a beautiful sound. "All right." There was a long pause, then her voice again, wistful and soft. "I miss you."

"Already." He glanced towards Harry's door, recognizing the undercurrent in her confession and not wanting this to be the moment the other wizard chose to emerge. "I have a feeling the nights are going to be pretty long without you."

There was an odd noise, a murmur, then Hannah's voice returned, and he knew from the change in tone that one of the children was nearby. "Trev's right here, do you want to talk to –"

While Harry's interruption would have been cause for resentment, this was another matter entirely, and he leaned forward eagerly, his hand tightening on the phone. "Of course!"

Another long pause, and then he heard his son's small voice, but not as clearly as Hannah's had been, as if he was some distance away from it. "Dad's in there?"

"No, it's like a Floo with no face." Her answer had the same faint, tinny remoteness. "Just talk there, and Daddy can hear you. Like Mummy was doing."

There was a shuffling, scraping noise, then Trevor's voice came clearly, if rather skeptically. "Daddy?"

It was hard to remind himself that for the boy, it was just a holiday, and he couldn't allow himself to sound like it was anything more, keeping everything a smile no matter what. "Mummy said you had an exciting trip, Trev. Was it lots of fun?"

"They gave us crisps on the airplane and fizzy drinks and breakfast in the boxes. Peggy wet herself."

"Don't tattle."

"She's supposed to use the _toilet_," Trevor pointed out with the grave superiority of someone who clearly had a very selective memory of his own successes and failures in that department.

"Of course," Neville agreed gravely, "But accidents still happen sometimes, even to big boys and girls like you two."

"It was loud and bumpy when we went into the sky." He could hear the boy squirm, and he couldn't tell if it was fear or excitement, or if his son even knew. "I almost magicked!"

Hannah had been right then. Not that he'd doubted her, but if Trevor himself had recognized what had nearly happened, it could be days away at the absolute most. He sighed, knowing that it was useless but feeling as if he would be failing his wife if he didn't at least say something. "Well, don't do that until you come back from holiday, all right? Daddy wants to see you magic."

"Can I have a car?"

The question came out of nowhere, but he answered without the faintest hesitation. "No, you can't have a car."

"Why?"

"You're not a Muggle. Only grownup Muggles have cars."

The denial of a car clearly meant there was nothing else of interest in the conversation, and there was a loud thud that he realized must have been the phone hitting the floor, as it was followed by the faint scamper of feet and an even fainter and more distant "Cheers!"

Neville was still chuckling when Hannah picked up the phone again, her own laughter barely restrained. "Sorry about that. Our hosts have the telly going for the children, and I'm amazed you held his attention for that long. Haven't been able to pry Peggy away for anything."

He nearly choked, shocked that she could be so irresponsible. "They shouldn't be watching that, Hannah!"

"But it's sweet!" She protested stubbornly. "Gives me a bit of a headache, but it's just moving drawings – like a Scenic, really – a Muggle story about a prince who was hexed into a Minotaur and lives in a castle with all sorts of charmed objects who sing and dance and the girl who comes to try and break the spell."

Neville frowned deeply, shaking his head. "That's not what I saw in Belfast. Not _at all. _The telly I saw was all sorts of mess about Muggles with guns and blowing things up and martial arts and women with practically _no -_"

"This is not like that, but I'll keep an eye on it." He could tell she was taking him seriously, but also that she considered it an overreaction. "If it gets inappropriate, I'll make them stop. I promise."

He sighed, changing the subject. "How did Ernie handle the trip?"

"I think he cried himself down while we were waiting to get on the plane." Her own exhaustion was showing more clearly now, and he wondered what time it was wherever they were, and how soon she would be able to get some sleep. "He slept almost the whole way, but now he's very fussy and keeps changing his mind whether he's hungry. They say that's called Jet Lag, though, and that it'll work itself out in a few days. They're being so nice, it's almost making me feel guilty about lying to them, or at least hiding things from them."

"Just promise me something, will you?"

"What's that?"

"You keep your wand on you, and keep it somewhere you can get to it." He allowed it to be as close to an order as he had ever given her. "I don't care what kind of story you have to make up, but I don't want you defenseless if something still happens."

Hannah made a small, indignant noise. "I don't care if I had my wand or not, if someone tried to hurt our children, there _is _no 'defenseless.'"

"I know, just –"

"I will." She was quiet again, and he wasn't sure if he had angered her, but there was no sign of anything but slight frustration as she finally sighed. "I need to go now, Ernie needs a change and even though she says she has two grown children, it would seem Muggles here don't know how to use nappies."

He stared at the phone, certain he hadn't heard that right. "What do they _use?" _

"I don't know," she snorted, then her voice softened again, though it was still rushed. "But if something happens, or if you just want to talk, don't worry about the time. Just call. Promise _me?" _

"If I need to, of course."

"And Neville?"

"Yes?"

"If you get yourself killed, remember that you brought _me _back from the dead once, and I wouldn't kiss you until _after _I made you wish you had stayed that way."

He nodded, knowing she didn't need to see his smile as he pressed his fingers against his lips, eyes closed. "I love you too."

"Cheers for now."

"Cheers."

There was a beep, and he knew even before he lowered the phone that she was gone again. His eyes remained closed, and he had to hold very still for almost a minute before he could go back to his forms with no threat of tears or any other traitorous emotion getting in the way. For now.

OOO

"Sweet Merlin, what's _in _that?" Neville coughed, shoving the cork back into the evidence vial as hard as he could and pushing it to the farthest corner of the desk. "Sure as hell isn't _Felix Felicius_!"

"No," Zach agreed, making a face as he waved his hand in front of his nose to try and get rid of the pungent smell that had filled the cubicle. "But you can't call it entirely a placebo, either."

Neville cast a disagreeable glare at the offending vial. "Don't tell me it works?"

"Not so much, but with that alcohol content, whoever takes it undoubtably _feels _completely invincible." He waved his wand, returning the sample to the sealed evidence case he had taken it from. "Although I'd prefer a shot or two of cauldron cleaner to that mess. Can't imagine why anyone would take it unless they were really determined to try and burn a straight line from one end to the other. And it was going for fifteen Galleons a tot!"

"Poor bastards. Their luck could only get better," Neville observed, but even as he said it, the smirk faded from his face, and Zach noticed.

"You hit on something, Commander?"

"Just…" he hesitated, not wanting to break Ricky's confidence. "I guess we shouldn't be laughing. Anyone who'd be so down on their luck that they'd choke this back probably couldn't well afford to be bilked out of their money."

"True enough." Zach pushed his chair in closer, leaning over Neville's shoulder to offer him another file of illegible scrawl. "But that's what we're here for, eh? We can't help that things are desperate, but we can sure as spellcraft stop the bastards who prey on it. And if you can crack the Bristol Bluebottle, that's almost a third of the illegal potions on this island."

He looked at the seemingly-innocuous container with a new respect, letting out a low, astonished whistle. "A _third_? From one bloke working out of a cauldron in his shed?"

"That's the thing…." A pause, and Zach thumbed through the parchment until he brought out a sheet written in Anthony's tight, methodical hand. "It's always the same bottles, but the samples we've gotten have been a dozen different illegal potions from as many different cauldrons. He's got a network, and it's the biggest one in the country. The problem is, he's tight. No one talks, and our guess is that's because he only uses people who're using him, if you follow me. You don't bite the hand that feeds you…especially if it's wrapped around your neck."

They were merely numbers – cold facts and figures – but Neville felt a cold twist in his gut as he scanned the columns of Tony's report. The underground potions trade was booming, but he had always thought of it as a realm of hallucinogens, love potions, sensory enhancers, and poisons. Those were still there, but there was a growing market in stimulants, tranquilizers, painkillers, and luck potions of every description. Ash in the air; bottled, corked, and sold to the desperate.

He started to turn the page, but then his hand stopped mid-motion, his breath catching on a memory. The flask Ricky had pulled from the couch…Neville looked up quickly. "Is it always the same color glass? No one else uses that?"

"Not that we know of." Zach crossed his arms, his eyes narrowing keenly. "Why? Don't tell me _you _–"

"No, no," he replied quickly, but he was distracted, his mind already racing ahead as he stood up, wanting to pace but having to satisfy himself with merely bracing his hands against the edge of the partition. "It's part what you said, and part what Malfoy said this morning. When –"

"_Malfoy_?" Zach interrupted, jerking up from the pile of parchment so quickly that he didn't even seem to notice that he had knocked over the quill cup with his elbow. "That case is over! What the hell were you doing –"

"Discovering how much of my wizarding civics I slept through in sixth year History and filling out the biggest bloody questionnaire I've ever seen," Neville said sourly. "Ask Harry about it, he'll fill you in. The point is –"

"The point is, he's not the little ferret we trapped in the Room, Commander!" The other man's tanned face was surprisingly flush as he spun the chair around. "He's grown up, just like the rest of us, and he's a spider now…a spider with a web that you do _not _want to get yourself wrapped up in!"

The vehemence of the outburst took Neville aback, and he didn't know quite how to respond, fumbling over what should have been an easy answer beneath the unexpected intensity of those steely eyes. "I'm…I'm not going to. Easy down, mate, it's not as if I trust him any further than I can spit him."

Zach was not placated. "Famous last words, sir. You don't have to trust him to wind up with his wand up your –"

He was cut off as the Department door slammed open, and both men looked up in alarm to see Harry standing there, wand drawn, his face set in harsh lines of fury as his eyes scoured the room. "Where's Finch-Fletchley?"

"I don't…" Neville began, then his eyes widened as he saw that the clock over the door read four minutes past eleven. " He's late."

Justin's obsessive punctuality had been a joke as far back as their Hogwarts days, but his old classmate didn't seem nearly as concerned as Neville himself felt. Instead, Zach laughed in open relief, leaning back in the chair with an effete flutter of his fingers as his voice fell into a teasing imitation of the familiar, educated enunciation. "Don't worry over it, old chap. Her Majesty's getting on a bit, and it would be so dreadful rude to mention she was dallying a tad over –"

Harry was not amused. He stormed across to the cubicle Justin now shared with Demelza, and although his face was hidden as they heard drawers yanked open and parchment rummaged, the scowl was still more than clear in his voice. "He had better have a world-class alibi."

"A world-class alibi for what, may I ask?" All heads swiveled as if yanked by a single puppeteer's string as Justin entered the room. He was in his Auror's uniform, but Neville's confusion deepened as he noticed the absence of the omnipresent coffee and handful of paperwork that had accompanied every other morning's arrival for all of them.

Harry's reaction, however, was far more dramatic. He just shy of vaulted out of the cubicle, hand extended. "Your wand, Finch-Fletchley. Now."

Wisely, Justin did not argue, drawing the weapon and handing it over immediately, handle-first. "Certainly, Sir, but may I...?"

"_Priori Incantato!_" The wand shuddered a moment, then slowly, almost reluctantly, a faint bluish mist eminated from the end of it, every practiced eye studying the weak vapor intently. It was nothing more than a simple levitation spell, the sort of thing any wizard used a dozen times a day, but Harry did not seem satisfied, tightening his grip on the wand and wrapping the tip in a protective shield cloth pulled from the pocket of his uniform. "_Priori Avada Kedavra!_"

Neville heard himself gasp at the implication, hardly alone among the ripple of shocked exclamations, but Justin's wand remained silent and still, unresponsive to Harry's dire summons. There was a long, heavy pause, then Justin cleared his throat, stepping forward. "That is the most dire of accusations, Auror Potter. May I pray inquire why you felt it necessary, now that you've seen that I have, in fact, never performed that particular Unforgivable?"

"There's been another murder, hasn't there?" Ron was the first to say it, but it was on every mind, as evidenced by the complete lack of shock at his question from any of the assembled officers.

Harry returned the wand, but there was no embarrassment or regret in the gesture, and his keen eyes peeled Justin apart like a specimen under glass, taking in every detail and flicker of response. "There has. Once again with no sign of forced entry or struggle, and in this case, the victim could have taken anyone here easily had he felt in the least threatened."

"But why do you think Justin -" Sally-Anne began, but Harry cut her off as he continued.

"I had an appointment with him at eleven. He had been dead mere minutes, and the papers on his desk he was lying on were of a _highly _sensitive nature, personal documents from the desk of his principle political foe. Whom I might have reason to believe would have taken great lengths to have them never been seen."

Now Justin did react. As if Harry had struck him with a curse, he staggered back almost a full step, one hand flying to his mouth in shock as he shook his head incredulously, all signs of his usual reserve vanished. "They - oh God. Oh, _God_, is _that _where..." He cut himself off, biting down on his own knuckle to stop himself as he braced against the nearest desk in what was obviously a sudden struggle to remain upright on knees that had abandoned him.

There was something predatory in the set of Harry's shoulders as he pressed forward, the two men given as wide a berth as the tiny office would allow as if the other Aurors were merely spectators at this unexpected bloodsport. "Is that where what, Finch-Fletchley? You know who I'm talking about and what I'm talking about, clearly, so as I said, you'd best have a damned good alibi, even if it wasn't your wand."

Justin had managed to pull out a chair, lowering himself into it with his head in his hands, not bothering to look up at his accuser, but there was nothing like guilt in his tone when he answered, only a blank kind of shock. "I was late this morning because I was looking for those documents. As for an alibi, you can probably find a dozen people who saw me come in, and I came straight here. Before that, there are phone and computer records at my other office. I don't know if the papers were taken from me directly or if I somehow - God forgive me - left them somewhere in the madness of the last few days. I would stake almost anything that I'd not have been so careless, but only almost. I was coming in to see if I'd left them here, and if not, it was my intention to beg your apologies and leave to continue looking."

"You have no idea how they could have wound up beneath a dead man?"

"Every idea, when it comes to that. If they were found, of course - or taken - he would have the highest interest in them, certainly, if we are speaking of the same man. I am assuming if you say my 'principle political foe', you mean the head of the Separatist party."

"Kingsley Shacklebolt, yes." He said it quietly, on the edge of kindly, but despite all the suspicions that had already come so close to certainties, it was still unthinkable to hear.

A cold chill ran up Neville's spine, and he could see it reflected in the eyes and tighened wand hands of those around him. The previous victims had all held some degree of, well, vulnerability. But Kingsley Shacklebolt? His memory flashed back ten years to the gates of the castle when hell had come to call and the man who had stood beside him as if it had been nothing more than a gentlemanly sparring match. Even in retirement, he had kept himself a well-honed weapon, and if the greatest living Auror of their time could be struck down by this unknown killer...

"Fine, I'll say it. I'm not too proud." Demmy stood up from her desk, shoulders defiantly thrown back. "We should work in pairs from now on. It's one thing to protect the theoretically vulnerable, but if they can take Shacklebolt, we'd be damned fools to think we're any safer. And that goes doubly for some of us...Ron, the Commander, and Justin have been off the game for a while now, and Tony and I, for all that we're tough as dragonhide, do have weaknesses. In my case, a literal blind spot."

"We're barely covering our cases as it is!" Ron protested. "And it's not going to get any easier if they keep dropping like this! If we have to double up, there's no chance!"

"Pair us with Enforcers, then," Zach offered thoughtfully. "Like when we were first being trained. We didn't have the numbers then either. We don't actually need two Aurors for what Demmy's saying - that I totally agree with, by the way - just two sets of eyes and two trained wands."

Harry had never taken his eyes off Justin, but he nodded his agreement. "I'll make the arrangments with the Enforcers, but it'll take a bit to shift the schedules. Does anyone have anywhere they have to be in the next hour?"

Reluctantly, Neville raised a hand. "I'm supposed to meet with Malfoy for my first lesson in the Wizengamot in about twenty minutes, but I can put that -"

"No," Harry cut him off. "I don't want him to know that anything's wrong any sooner than we can help it. You be there on time; we need you to play the wide-eyed boy and get as much from that slimy little git as we can squeeze."

Ron chuckled bitterly. "No offense, Harry, but I think he started leaving that one behind when you took us on a field trip to the Department of Mysteries twelve years back."

"Yes, well, I might be a bit more of a soldier now than I was then," Neville replied dryly, "but I'm no more a politician than I ever was. If Harry wants me to go, I'll go...but if he so much as picks his nose unexpectedly, don't be too surprised if I hex it off."

The laugh was unearthly; stretched thin over a despairing kind of panic, and Justin's head raised from the cup of his hands to show a weariness of thrice his age in his eyes. "We're all going to be keyed a bit tight, dear chap. I'll not hold it as a spot on your character." His look shifted to Harry, the weariness now a naked plea. "Is there any hope that I might retrieve those papers? They are the very strictest -"

"I know." There was no harshness there, but no leniency either. "But I can't release them, Justin. They're evidence now. Some of the strongest we have, and I'm sorry if they implicate anyone in your movement, but this is beyond politics, regardless of the motives."

"Harry..." It was a whisper, it was unbelievably _begging_, embarrassingly intimate, and Neville couldn't suppress his own morbid curiosity as to what could be so volatile as Harry knelt to put a comforting hand on the other man's knee.

"I'm so sorry. I know. I saw them. But the office is sealed now. It's a crime scene. And I give you my word that if it's at all possible, only I will read them. It was already my intention to take the Shacklebolt case myself for a dozen reasons, but no matter what, they will be kept under the very highest security. I may not run in the circles you do, but that doesn't mean I don't know when I'm holding dynamite or not to light a match when I am."

Justin nodded slowly, vacantly, the acceptance of a man mounting the gallows. "Let us hope you're right, my dear fellow, or all the bloodshed we've all weathered may well be moot."

OOO

It was not what he had expected. Granted, what he had expected, now that he thought about it, had really been very silly, even if not entirely out of line with events of his own very real past. There was not, of course, a circle of dark robed and hooded acolytes, mysterious chanting, a secret sub-sub basement lit with torches in iron brackets and marked with strange symbols in chalk, ash, and worse, possibly even an altar of some kind, stained with unspeakable blood and bearing an ancient, fragile tome from which would be imparted the secrets of this darkest magic in hushed tones and arcane language. Draco was not masked and painted, there was no test to pass, he was not even blindfolded before being lead into the chamber.

It wasn't even a chamber. It was simply the kitchen of the Manor, and Draco was sitting there in of all things a plain grey t-shirt, trainers, and khaki trousers beneath perfectly ordinary day robes. There were no strange ritual accoutrements on the table that instead offered nothing more remarkable than two notepads, ink, quills, a pot of tea, and a plate that held a deeply sinister selection of...sandwiches. Roast beef, cheese and tomato, and ham by the looks of them.

Draco's smile said the discomfiture was written clearly on his face, but it quickly turned somber as he stood, oddly clasping his hands behind his back at what was almost military parade rest and seemed to brace himself, his eyes locked with Neville's. "Go ahead."

Neville frowned, hating that he already was at least a step behind in having any idea what was going on here. There was nothing for it, though. He had no illusions that guessing would do anything other than make him look even more of a fool than asking. "Go ahead and what?"

"Hit me."

It was not a joke. Draco was too obviously ready for it physically, but there was no taunt to it either, no sneer, no resignation, even, and Neville took a step back, unnerved. "_What_?"

"Hit. Me." Again, the tone of eminent practicality, only a little bit annoyed, as if he had needed to repeat the request of how Neville took his tea. "You hate me, Longbottom. We both know this. You hate me all the more because you had quite dramatically washed your hands of me and now you're back, and more still because I said you would be. I don't give a Doxie's fanny about that, frankly, but I can't have you distracted by how much you'd love to smash my face in, so we'll get that out of the way." He sighed, stripping out of the robes and draping them over the back of the chair he'd been sitting in before resuming his previous posture. "I know what I'm doing. I'm offering you one punch, no magic, but if you don't think I know what I'm asking for, please note that I'm wearing clothes I don't mind getting blood on, and if you don't think I can take it, please also recall that I spent the better part of a year significantly out of favor with my aunt."

For a moment, Neville almost took him up on it. It was, no doubt about it, a tempting offer. But he couldn't, and he knew it, even if Draco was as willing as he genuinely seemed to be. He was on duty, and punching old enemies, no matter how much of a grudge one held against them, was frowned upon. He shook his head, taking the seat across from the one Draco had claimed. "Thank you for the offer, but no. Let's get down to business."

There was a brief, evaluating pause, then Draco shrugged and put his robes back on, taking a sandwich from the plate as he sat. "All right then. Business it is. My business is to turn you into the savviest politician in that room so that no one but me takes advantage of you. What's yours?"

"I don't follow you."

"What do you want to get out of this? Other than a salary?" He opened the sandwich, adding mustard from the small silver pot. "You need to have a position, Longbottom, and I don't just mean on the subject of Unification. What are your goals, your beliefs? And I don't mean Gryffindor nonsense about 'upholding righteousness.' I mean actual positions on the hot issues in government right now."

"I..." Neville trailed off almost as soon as he'd started, realizing to his embarrassment that he didn't really know what those topics even were, but Draco did not seem at all surprised.

"Nevermind. We can work out what you want to do later. Let's start with how this all works. Which is to say that it doesn't, and that's the first thing you need to know, and the thing that most of your fellows fail to grasp. Fortunately, you're being instructed by me."

He managed to successfully - if only just - avoid rolling his eyes, but the scorn was clear in his voice. "Yes, you've told me how lucky I am."

"Actually, you are. There is literally no other person living who knows quite as much about the dirty little secrets of this government, because my grandfather, along with Riddle, was the one who put it all in place." Draco paused, taking a bite of his sandwich before giving a dark smile that held no real amusement. "And the biggest of those dirty little secrets is that it was never meant to work."

"That's ridiculous," Neville made no effort to hide his scorn. "No one designs a government to fail. Besides, I _did _take History of Magic. Even if it was all a ploy to gain popular support, Riddle and your grandfather _did _pull the wizarding world out of the dark ages."

"Yes, they did. Businesses funded, all manner of infrastructure; the railroad, Floo Network, owl post, vastly expanded hospital and Ministry, near total employment...but almost two thirds of wizarding citizens work for the Ministry. Please, have something to eat. I know I have you during your lunch hour, and it's good manners for both of us." Neville hesitated, but refusal would have been both juvenile and impractical, and he grudgingly accepted a cheese and tomato. "It's hugely top-heavy;" Draco continued coolly, "vastly more government than could ever be required by a population our size or sustained by taxes from such a population."

"Because it was never meant to be a government for our population." He took a bite, almost hoping it would be awful. The bread and cheese were both of the highest quality, perfectly toasted together, but there was a petty pleasure in the knowledge that the tomatoes were vastly inferior to the carefully tended fruits of his own hothouse. "It was set up to in the short term provide a huge economic boost and then to be ready to seamlessly replace the Muggle government when he took over."

"Exactly, but of course, as you and yours so stalwartly assured, there was never any such takeover and thus never any accompanying infusion of revenue." Draco seemed paternally pleased with his answers, the tone the same he used with his own students when they had successfully identified some common herb, and it grated on him more than he liked. "Confiscated assets and fines from two rounds of losers in two rounds of war gave it enough of a dose of Pepper-Up potion that it kept running briefly, but now that has run out, and we are left with a disaster of an unfundable government that, if it fails, throws us more or less back to living in caves, as we have become every bit as dependent on it as we were meant to be."

"So the Wizengamot is trying to fix that?" Determinedly holding eye contact, Neville poured himself a cup of tea, then one for Draco as well. "Milk and sugar?" Years ago, he had been amazed to find within himself the capacity for his parent's bravery under fire and his father's gift for teaching, and now it seemed that Gran's frigidly cutting politeness had also lain dormant, awaiting its need.

"One please, and thank you." Draco took the cup with the faintest flicker of surprise at the civility, and Neville felt a little surge of triumph and a kind of thrill he hadn't expected. He still preferred the practiced footing of outright combat, but maybe he wasn't entirely helpless on this battlefield either.

"They're trying to fix..." The reminder was carefully neutral, but he didn't miss the flash of ire as Draco realized he had lost his place in the conversation and retorted just a bit too quickly.

"Of course not! It can't be fixed, or at least, not in any way that wouldn't be utter political suicide for anyone who proposed it. The Wizengamot is trying to bail frantically enough to keep the ship floating until each member is individually out of office, and then it will be someone else's problem."

"That's not right," Neville's dismay was genuine, though he managed to keep it down to little more than a harshly rebuking clip to his tone. "That's only going to make it worse for people!"

"That's how it works," Draco smirked bluntly over the rim of his cup. "You have this afternoon to mope over it, and then you're just going to have to accept it."

He almost rose to it. Almost. Instead, he took a deep breath, nodding mildly. "So how exactly are they 'bailing'?"

Draco gave him a long, analytical look guised in a bite of sandwich before answering. "A tremendous amount of finger pointing and noise about whose fault it is, of course. That's really the important part and what most of the time is spent on. Plus battling fiercely over trying to cut as much money from the budget as possible without losing anything popular or that matters to them or putting enough people out of work that there's rioting over it, and trying to find new ways to raise taxes that don't officially count as raising taxes, like putting fees on -"

"Is that why there are those stupid 'processing fees' on every bit of parchm-"

"Precisely. Because you'll grumble over those, but you'd be lighting the torches if they took the same amount in outright taxes."

"Still..." Neville chose his words slowly, forcing himself to ignore his irritation at that particular discovery and the fact that Draco was, once again, right. When he thought about the amount of fees they'd paid on every little bit of parchment for the Cauldron in the last...no. Back on track. "Even if it's not the best move for popularity, surely someone is willing to stand up and say that this is in fact a sinking ship and that we have to make drastic changes or everyone is going to suffer a lot more when it all collapses?"

"Please, do." Draco laughed, putting down his cup and gesturing grandly across the table with theatrical disdain. "Right now. Finish your sandwich, stand up, make your stirring speech, and get it out of your system. Then you can pour yourself another cup of tea and we can move on."

It was meant to mock him, goad him, but the air of it was too close to the old schoolboy taunts, and those had long ago lost their power in the deluge of darker priorities than wounded adolescent pride. Ironically, perhaps, it took the last of the sting from their exchange, and Neville found himself evaluating the truth behind it almost as he once had Kaye's particularly religiously overwritten lessons. "You're talking about it like you did me hitting you."

To his credit, Draco recovered so quickly from Neville's failure to rise to his jibe that he wouldn't have seen it at all had he not been looking. There was something relieving in his willingness to abandon it now to frank discussion, but something dangerous as well. "I absolutely am, because you clearly don't understand what political suicide means. It means that you lose _all your power_. You break the rules like that, and you become a joke, a fringe member, one meaningless vote. You look heroic to a handful of people who don't matter inside that chamber, but you can accomplish less for them than the janitor. It's a nice, silly little idea, but it's not viable for all the same reasons that it wouldn't have worked to just shoot Snape and the Carrows. You'd be done for, and there'd be too many more where they came from."

Neville did not answer immediately. He took his time with the last few bites of his sandwich, letting himself consider before he spoke, and when he did, there was a meticulous lack of the reproach that could so easily be otherwise layered onto what was simply a statement of fact. "I'm not like you, Malfoy. I've already been willing to put myself on the line more than once to try and save this world. I don't think I could successfully play an elaborate game of ignoring disaster for my own benefit, and even if I could, no one would believe it of me after what I've done before."

"Regrettably true," Draco sighed. "I never said this would be easy."

"It never is." The grey eyes were searching his like a Legilimens, though he knew Draco had no such training, and he allowed them to probe uselessly against the sturdy stone of Dales reserve for nearly a minute before he asked. "How long?"

"Pardon?"

"How long do you think we have, even with all the bailing? Do you think you actually can last out your term, considering you're in for life and you're only a few months older than I am?" They both knew the answer already, but he was pleased that Draco made no attempt to sugar coat it or weasel away from the harsh truth.

"Of course not. Only the most delusionally optimistic think we have more than five years at the outside." He raised his nearly empty cup in a dark toast to the burning future. "Which is why you bail with one hand, make as much noise as you can about it being someone else's fault that it's leaking, and with the other, you pick which boat-building crew you're on."

"That's what the Unification business is really about, then, isn't it? It's not the Muggles, it's the two biggest ideas for how we can salvage this disaster, either by joining a larger economy or consolidating into a smaller one."

"Yes and no. You're right, for once, finally, but the Muggles are also an issue. It's just all coming to a head at once." Draco poured himself another cup of tea, and Neville nodded politely to accept the refill of his own.

"So which boat are you building?"

"Neither." There was a tiny rumble of a self-satisfied chuckle at his own cleverness which did not escape Neville's notice. "I make more noise than anyone, and I spend plenty of time passing buckets to people who are bailing, and I make sure I'm in the good graces of the captains of both would-be boats, but if no one has ever actually caught me bailing or building, there's less chance of me going down with whatever ship hits bottom first."

Neville added his own milk and sugar, taking his time with it to consider his next move. It would be a risk, yes, but perhaps not too much of one. "And in all of this, information is the most vital currency."

"You remember. I'm impressed."

"What if I had information of value to you? What would I get for it?"

"Oh, Longbottom, how crude." Draco tutted in exaggerated disapproval, shaking his head mournfully. "Yet you're getting the gist. Baby steps, I suppose."

"I'm serious."

Once again, the taunting air fell away with disconcerting speed, and Neville wondered how much longer he would bother with it at all, or if it was just too much of a habit after so long. "All right, then. If it was good, I suppose I'd repay in kind. I have plenty that you'd want; personally, professionally, and politically, and it would depend on which category the information fell into for me."

"Fair enough." He hesitated a moment over the phrasing, still far from comfortable in this new role. "You're going to need to figure out who the next captain is for one of your boats."

"Has there been a mutiny?"

"A murder."

"Lord Ogilvy?"

"Shacklebolt."

He had wondered at first if Draco had already known, he had taken the initial revelation so much in stride, but now his mouth dropped open in pure, unmasked, unedited dismay. "Fuck!"

Neville didn't manage to hold back the smile. "Oh, Malfoy, how crude."

Draco didn't even seem to notice the jibe, still struggling to recover his composure. "When?"

"This morning, but that's all you're going to get, because that's all the papers are going to get in a few hours. So." He spread his hands, mimicking the other man's own falsely expansive gesture from their previous encounter. "Quid pro quo."

"All right, then." There was still visible tumult behind his eyes, but Draco ran his hands swiftly over his hair as if by making sure every strand was in place he could order the thoughts beneath. "I'd count that as professional, and since you're here in green, I'll repay in kind." His eyes closed a moment, and when he opened them again, all trace of discord was gone so utterly that Neville almost doubted it had been there at all. "When you're looking for something, always start by cleaning house."

A sick chill teased at the edges of Neville's stomach. "Are you saying the killer is one of ours? That you know who it is?"

"You have cases other than that. But in a society where the government is this overlarge, nothing gets a substantial market share without having friends in the government. No matter how black market...or should I say blue?"

The relief was far more than it should have been, and he could only hope that Draco assumed it was with eagerness to solve his case, because he knew he couldn't hide his reaction entirely. "You know the identity of the Bristol Bluebottle?"

"I know that it would be impossible for him to operate if there weren't a lot of blind eyes being turned in departments that regulate the supplies of various ingredients, and that can't be done if you don't know where to look away from." Draco was back in his element now, drawing out his morsel like a cat with a particularly amusingly vivacious bit of prey. "You've probably already asked around there, but it would be wise to press harder. Perhaps consider with frivolous industries like cosmetics and perfumes so hard hit, who has a lifestyle that can't be supported with reduced kickbacks."

Neville had already made the notation in his pad, copying it to Zach. "You understand this means I have to cut our lesson short."

"I don't mind." Draco stood, waving away the remains of their luncheon with a flick of his wand that made Neville nearly wince at the casual waste. "I know you've grasped at least three things."

"And what would those be?"

They had left the kitchen now, making their way through the labyrinthine manor house towards the entrance hall. "To accept tea and hospitality and converse like an adult without making faces, that punching people doesn't actually solve anything, and that sometimes you have to accept the ground you're fighting on without wasting all your energy trying to change it. Honestly, that puts you three for three ahead of your boss. And fascinating enough, I hear a lot more of the Commander than the Chosen One these days."

"Don't try to turn me against him, Malfoy."

"I wouldn't." He seemed honestly affronted at the suggestion, but in a way that suggested that such obvious games were below him rather than any distaste for the concept itself. "Besides, it's the loyalty of people to their leaders that's far more interesting to deal in."

Neville stopped, turning to the other man with a scathingly warning glare. "If you mess with my DA..."

"I would never be so foolish, Longbottom." He meant it, completely, but then the smallest spark of mischief glimmered just enough to make Neville very, very uncomfortable. "And besides, I don't need to. As you just said, they're your DA." He opened the front door, every bit the gracious host, and now the spark was just a little too much brighter. "Have a good afternoon."

TO BE CONTINUED

_Author's note: In preparing to publish this update, I noticed that there was a scene in Chapter 6 which was on the Livejournal community but was accidentally omitted from the version. It has been repaired. My apologies._


	9. Semper Sodales

He was supposed to meet with his new Enforcer partner at one, but he managed to put it off for another hour. This was a visit he needed to make alone. Neville paused a moment at the door of the flat, then unbuttoned his Auror's robes, bundling them under his arm and rolling up his shirtsleeves before he knocked. While the case of the Bristol Bluebottle might be on Auror Longbottom's desk, he was here as the Commander, and he wanted that to be clear.

There was no answer, but he could hear motion from within, and he knocked again. "Ricky? It's Neville. Are you ok?"

Another long not-quite silence, and Neville frowned, cupping his hand to the door and pressing his ear against it. Something scraping, a thud, then Ricky's voice, the jagged vicious growl of a junkyard dog with a mouthful of broken teeth. "PISS OFF YOU PIECE OF C-" he cut off in a ragged, retching splatter, and there was no more hesitation.

"_Alohomora_!" His wand sparked against the security he knew would be on the latch, but his shoulder was right behind it, cracking the deadbolt out of the cheap, half-rotted frame. The impact sent a careening wave of pain crimson hot through the network of destruction in his back, but he ignored it, clenching his teeth against it as he surveyed the inside of the once-cozy little flat.

Had he not known better, he'd have thought it another murder scene. The furniture was gone, the room stripped completely bare, shiny new locks gleaming from the dingy cupboards, the telephone a broken shell yanked from the wall with its cords hanging loose like spilled entrails. Blood, vomit, and what by the gagging stench were several other bodily substances were splashed and smeared and pooled over the floor, the walls, even spattered here and there on the ceiling, and at the epicenter of it all, an impossibly familiar figure knotted into a misery of limbs in the furthest corner.

Swallowing back hard on his own urge to vomit, breathing through his mouth against the worst of the smell, Neville tossed aside his robes in the vaguely cleanest corner of the room, crossing the room at a sprint to kneel beside what he almost couldn't believe had once been one of his own. "Ricky! Sweet Merlin, what -"

It was meant to be a comforting touch, but Ricky practically exploded at the hand on his shoulder. "_GET AWAY FROM ME!_" He lurched to his feet, already halfway across the room before Neville could even turn, and then he was at the door, clamboring it closed and scrabbling at the broken bits of the frame until he had them jammed and wedged to seal it again and could throw himself against it as if keeping all the world at bay, eyes wild as they scanned the room for what else might have invaded the sanctuary of his private hell.

Now that he could see the other man properly, Neville found himself shaking, frightened on a raw, primal level by the sheer wrongness of it. Ricky was wearing nothing but a filthy pair of tattered boxer shorts, and his eyes were those of a cornered animal, bloodshot and darting across who knew what he was seeing from within the dark-shadowed sinkholes of their sockets. His matted hair plastered to his head with the rank sweat that beaded across the post-apocalyptic landscape of pale and bruised and punctured skin stretched taut over jutting bone, and he barely held anything like balance as he teetered on his good leg, the scarred thigh of the other caked in the blood that matched his right hand as the weapon which had gouged the deep, jagged tears surrounding the old wound.

Slowly, careful to make no sudden moves, Neville got to his feet, spreading his empty hands in a gesture of appeasement against the wild paranoia of the younger man's eyes. It was beyond question that Ricky was having a Very Bad Reaction to whatever he'd taken, and the memory of the putrid counterfeit _Felix Felicius_was far from distant. "It's ok, mate," he said soothingly, "you're not in trouble...I just need to know, as a friend, what did you take? Do you have any left?"

Ricky gaped at him for a moment in broad incredulity, then his head jerked back in a wild, cackling laugh that spurred him away from the door to a staggering, limping circuit of the ravaged room. "TAKE? Oh, that's – fucking hell. Take? _Take_!" He grabbed the locked doors of the cupboard, yanking on them like the bars of a cage and then slamming both fists against them so hard that both doors and knuckles cracked loudly. He spun back to Neville, brandishing his bleeding hands with a manic giggle. "If I fucking had any fucking thing to goddamn _take _do you think I -"

What little color there had been high on his sharp cheekbones vanished, and he sank to his knees, clutching his stomach as the sweat went from droplets to flowing, the words muttered almost unintelligibly through a face screwed tight in agony and teeth that chattered a death rattle as he rocked. "Oh shit you I fuck God God do you got any I need I just there isn't no more no fucking money won't float me can't need it for my Nat my Nattie Merlin help me can't do this any more Nat baby baby I love you Nat doll I've gotta for you, y'know, quit it, kick it while you don't can't see me baby take you don't _PLEASE_!"

The last word was a scream, and his eyes flew open to fix on Neville's like a martyr at the stake. "Don't let them take her please, Commander, don't let them take my fucking baby she's all I all I all I got all I got!"

The plea twisted into the feel of little hands around his neck hugging goodbye and he knelt to wrap the trembling body in his arms, not caring in the least about the mess covering him because he was a father and it was nothing he hadn't been up to his elbows in before, he was a father and oh, he knew this fear too, too well. "No one's going to take Nat, Ricky. She's yours. I know how much you love her."

Hands stronger than he'd imagined still possible clenched at his shoulders, digging in slivers of pain that didn't matter against what he felt shuddering through Ricky's body. "Gotta quit this shit for her. Gonna fucking fucking killing me so so make it oh shit I..."

The murmurs blurred into muffled sobs against his chest, and Neville matched the rocking, running his fingers through the stiffly caked hair. "Can I get you help, Ricky? Can I call someone?"

"NO!" What had been meant as an offer of help was clearly taken as a threat, and he shoved away, back up again and pacing again with that same terrible weaving stagger that could come crashing down at any moment, hugging himself, raking red lines of his own to match Neville's across his back. "Take my baby can't have help no help take her kill myself if they take her please, Commander, please just go just get out of here fucking go and forget you ever fucking saw me please get the fuck out of here!"

"What if I keep it DA?" Neville followed him at arm's length, unsure whether it was more harm than good to reach out again but ready to catch if his legs gave out entirely. "We stick together, Ricky. After all these years, you know that. They'll keep their mouth shut if I order them to; do you remember the DA?"

A tight, forced nod, biting down on his lip so hard it was a miracle it didn't bring blood. "DA take care of each other. DA don't feel pain."

"DA do whatever it takes," Neville finished softly. "That's right. That's right. We take care of each other, and I went after Seamus, didn't I? To hell with the rules, he was one of us, and I didn't let him go, did I?"

"No, no!" Screamed, frantic batting at something in the air Neville was all too glad he couldn't see before the hunted, haunted eyes turned to him again. "But he's not he's just you're just I'm not..." Now his legs did give way, but the offer of help was pushed aside and he curled on the floor, beating his head against the stained and pitted planks. "Oh fuck oh fuck I'm gonna die, I'm gonna -"

"Ricky, stop it!" Neville scooped one arm under him, hating that he had to use the restraining hold but having no choice as he reached in his trouser pocket with his other hand for the old Galleon. "I'm going to call someone, ok? Just DA."

"Who?" He wasn't fighting now, utterly limp and yet still shaking so frighteningly hard. "Who you gonna call, Commander? There's nobody can – they'll all think I'm –" Ricky's eyes crammed shut again in a low, anguished moan as his injured leg seemed to twist and writhe of its own accord. "It's oh Merlin it fucking hurts so goddamn bad it's fucking burning my leg's burning please, Commander -"

It had been years since he'd used it, but the Morse code was tattooed into a part of his memory that didn't even need to think, and he tapped out the message into the Galleon without taking any of his attention off of the soldier in his arms. Gingerly, he laid him on the floor, prying the clutching hands away to examine the torn skin of Ricky's thigh. "It's not burning," he offered firmly, "it's just in your head."

"Please, please...hurts so bad...help me..."

"I will. I am." The message sent, the Galleon went back in his pocket and he peeled off his shirt, tearing long strips from the white cotton into makeshift bandages that were still the cleanest thing in the room. "You can do this. You took the Cruciatus, I saw you do it more than once. We all did." He held Ricky's eyes with his as he Scourgified the leg, trying to force some of his own strength to be shared by sheer willpower. "You can take this. Go back there. Find the safe place from the Cruciatus."

"I CAN'T!" Hands slammed down on the floorboards, back arched almost to the point of breaking, but despite how much Neville knew it had to hurt, there was no effort to pull the leg away as he quickly wrapped the bandages, and that trust was something, something at least to cling to. "It was – they tore her to -"

The Galleon warmed an answer against his thigh through his pocket, and Neville knew what it meant without looking as he knotted the last of the cloth strips that had already soaked through scarlet. "I've called Luna. Just Luna. She won't judge you, Ricky. She doesn't judge anyone. She'll know what to do. She'll help, I promise."

"No help no bringing her back, TORE HER FUCKING HEAD OFF!"

"I know, Ricky, I'm so sorry, I wish I could bring her back, I wish -"

"Brought everyone ELSE back! Why not my Rachel? Why not my Rachel and now my baby now our baby oh Nattie Nattie, baby, baby, I love you, I loved you, I love you so much, can't do this, gotta do this, oh Merlin -" He was sobbing, babbling, begging, the sweat making his skin so slick that it was hard for Neville to keep hold of those bird's-wing shoulders without hurting him but he was fumbling at the bandages, pawing and jabbing and making the blood seep from beneath the edges and giving no choice.

"Ricky, you have to settle down, you're going to hurt yourself. Luna's on her way..."

"IT DOESN'T MATTER, DOES IT?" The sturdy cotton tore away like tissue, and he slammed his hand down into the carnage despite Neville's best efforts, brandishing the gory palm at him like a trophy of pure accusation. "She bringing Rachel, bringing her back, give her back like you got your fucking bitch back all happy-dandy?"

It was all there in his eyes. Every empty night of half-waking to cuddle up to too-cold, too-smooth sheets, every time no one laughed at the private joke, every triumph with no one to celebrate and loss with no one to ease and seemingly meaningless trinket that burned with no one to buy it for with eyes that wouldn't shine in delight because they had closed forever. The ache that clenched your skin worse than any addiction and tore your heart with all the things that had once been pieces of joy and the ring that he had never taken off. Neville could feel the tears on his own cheeks and didn't care. "I lost Hannah for ten years, I know what you're -"

"NO YOU DON'T YOU GOT HER BACK YOU FUCKING COCKSUCKER!" Ricky's punch went wild, missed Neville entirely, but he didn't even notice. The leg was a disaster, it shouldn't have held him but it did as he careened from wall to wall in a keening wailing maelstrom of so many kinds of pain that mocked his mere twenty-four years of life. "And she was my fucking everything, my whole goddamn world, the thing that - oh, fuck, fuck, it's too much, I can't do this, I can't - the good thing, y'know? The this is normal and even if I was a fucking wreck and a killer and a - make it stop, please, please - we were gonna have a future and it was gonna be like normal people get good people get real people get could be real people and it's not RIGHT it's not FAIR because WHY HER? WHY in all the fucking twisted shit in this rotted cunt of a world did it have to be HER she was good and beautiful and she was fucking saving me, Commander, she was fucking saving me and there's only one reason left to not just fucking let go and now they're fucking going to take that and I can't do this I can't I can't it's going to fucking kill me and God's bleeding cock I don't fucking CARE!"

Broken against the wall in all the pieces he knew by bleeding rote, every word taken from his own lips at some point or another in the poisoned lonely dark, but he didn't need to hear that Neville knew or understood, because for all that he did, he couldn't. Loss, like love, was something so universally individual, so collectively unique, and for all that Rachel's battered corpse was ripped across his words, it was someone alive and whole and innocent that was the deeper wellspring of his pain; the terror of a second loss unbearable after the first.

It was to that fear Neville answered, trying to allow just enough of his own shared fears and wounds and scars to strengthen the shadows of the decade-old Commander's authority. "I did get her back and I've got my kids now and I know, I _know _what Nattie means to you, and I swear on everything we've been through and all the ones we've lost that I will find a way for you to keep your daughter even if that means Hannah and I adopt her and you come live with us. But you'll get through this. You will. You're DA. You're so strong, Ricky. You were just a kid and you fought as hard as any of us."

"Not hard enough. Not _enough. Not enough. NOT ENOUGH_!" Neville didn't argue, no point in arguing, because it was a mantra that had nothing to do with logic and where those who told you that you'd done all you could were just the ones who didn't understand.

Because it wasn't about what you could do, it was about fair and wrong and why and gone too young and needing there to be a reason and turning it on yourself because otherwise it was a black hole vortex of incomprehensible fate that could tear apart universes without needing reasons. The ones who tried to argue not enough didn't understand it was the shelter, not the pain. It was control of the uncontrollable. It was saying that if you just _somethinged _better, there wouldn't be any more when there had already been too many. Seamus carried them on his skin in characteristically brazen blue, and even if even Hannah didn't know, he did too, because among forty, no one noticed fourteen more.

The sudden crack split the room like a thunderbolt, and both men responded on instinct ratcheted to the zenith on adrenaline and agony, locking together in a defensive posture so fire-trained that time and toxins were nothing. It was only that Neville was the only one armed and even then by the width of a fairy's hair that the new arrival wasn't instantly incinerated, and his wand was shaking as hard as Ricky's fists as he slowly lowered it. "Luna –!"

If she noticed that she had nearly died, she didn't seem to mind, and there was something like water in a desert about her eternal, implacable calm. "I came as fast as I could, Commander."

Neville was further relieved that she seemed to genuinely understand what she was getting into; she was wearing none of her usual bazaar of beads and bangles, layers of scarves and shawls and robes abandoned for a simple, utilitarian shift already pattered in a hundred layered stains, her usually flowing hair secured in a firmly plaited knot at the base of her neck. A canvas satchel was slung over her shoulder, but as she opened the flap and began to rummage the contents, Ricky's eyes widened, and Neville felt a surge of worry as to what exactly he was seeing as he backed away as quickly as he could, almost falling a half-dozen times and not even noticing. "Fucking oh no no no no nononononono -"

"It's just Luna." Neville motioned for her to look up, to let Ricky see her face. "Lieutentant Lovegood, remember? I said she was coming to help."

"TAKE MY NATTIE!"

"I'm not taking anyone." Luna smiled kindly, unfolding the little oilcloth bundle she'd withdrawn to show him a pile of herbs and roots and powders. "I've brought some things that might help with some of your symptoms...what were you taking, Ricky? Was it for your leg?"

"Don't...yeah...oh, it's...I can't. I can't. I can't do this. I can't fucking do this." He was clutching at himself again, but it was a struggle for control, and he wasn't fighting her, he was fighting himself to answer, and Neville couldn't help but be awed at the effortlessly obtained cooperation. This, _this _was why he'd made her an officer and this was why he'd never regretted it and this was why he had missed her a thousand times after they'd lost her at Christmas and why none of the eccentricities or anything else mattered. Because whether it was fourteen and facing a dozen Death Eaters or sixteen and surrounded by werewolves or seventeen and taking command of the snipers or twenty-six and suddenly called into the middle of nightmare withdrawals, she didn't just take it in stride, she took it in hand and made it so easily hers that you felt absurd for ever worrying.

Another few deep, shivering breaths and Ricky had control enough to answer. "Something like...like...morphine. Said it was like morphine. Made the pain so I could...just enough to get...had to. Fucking _had to_. No choice! They didn't let me -"

"I know, I know. It's okay. We're going to get you through this." He was crying, and Luna took him in her arms, not hesitating to lay a maternal kiss on his dripping forehead as she extended the packet past his back with one hand. "I want you to start some hot water, Neville – proper boil it on the hob, we don't want any of the potency diluted by your rogue energies while you're this rattled – and add this."

Neville nodded immediately, opening the packet with one hand as he cut the locks on the cupboard and started the search for the kettle or at least a pan that could be made do. "What is it?"

"A lot of things. Ginger, valerian, passionflower, St. Johns wort, bacopa, lobelia, rosemary, velvet antler, and some honey crystals and mineral salts for all the vomiting and fluid loss. We need to get fluids into him, lots of fluids."

"Can't – no." Ricky shook his head desperately, motioning vaguely at the wide evidence of his illness around the room. "Can't keep it down."

"I know, and then we'll just give you more," Luna agreed matter-of-factly. She had pulled another oilskin bag from her satchel, and this one had a damp cloth that steamed slightly with something that smelled of orange and clove and something more exotic he couldn't identify that she was smoothing over Ricky's face, cleaning away the worst of the filth. "We've got to keep you hydrated. You've been losing fluid...well, just about every way a person can." She paused reflectively, then shrugged. "Except childbirth, of course, but then again, you don't have a uterus, so I don't suppose that really counts for you, does it?"

The kettle had been found and filled and was now well on it's way to boiling, but Neville couldn't help notice the seemingly-practiced ease of Luna's ministrations as he looked for an unbreakable something to pour her mixture into. "Have you done this before?"

"Not exactly, but not everything my parents experimented with worked, and I've dealt with a lot of potions gone wrong." She was re-bandaging the leg now, never even looking up, her soft, dreamy voice showing no sign of distress at the topic or task. "That's how my mother died, you know. They were trying to recreate the Elixir of Life. I watched her die of old age, and Daddy came close."

Neville stopped mid-motion, the kettle suspended over the wooden salad bowl as he caught his breath at the sudden revelation. "Luna, I'm so sorry, I didn't -"

"It was her time."

There was nothing of platitude about it, but whatever spell she had cast over Ricky seemed to come violently undone at the calm statement, and he jerked back, scrabbling away across the slick floor, his head shaking so hard that it scattered sweat over Luna's face and shift like tears. "Not fucking Rachel's time, they fucking TOOK her, MURDERED her, and I...all that...so much fucking blood everywhere just took her fucking head off my Rachel..."

He was weakening, badly, each round of mania passing faster than the last, and Neville cooled the pungent brew to a safe drinking temperature with a tap of his wand, reaching Ricky's side at the same time as Luna and passing her the bowl. She motioned Neville to sit, and they wordlessly orchestrated the settling of Ricky's body into his lap so that his head was at a good angle for her to tip the bowl to his lips.

It took a few tries, but between the two of them, there was surprisingly little spilled, and Luna had the entire mixture into their patient in short order. She tapped the bowl with her wand, re-filling it with water as Ricky made a face. "I thought...s'posed to make me feel...better."

"You will," she assured him blithely. "It'll just take a few, alternated with tepid water, and I'm afraid it won't be able to clear up the symptoms entirely, just make them more bearable. You haven't been very good to yourself, you know."

"Not much...fucking choice."

"Drink your water." Luna watched quietly for a few seconds as he struggled with short, gasping sips, tilting her head at him in the curiously birdlike manner Neville had long ago learned meant she was thinking. "You know, Rachel isn't gone completely. She left you a part of herself in Natalie. She left you that beautiful little girl, and you're going to get through this and take care of her, just like Daddy took care of me until I was old enough to take care of him both because he loved me and because he loved that I was a part of Mummy that he could still keep and hold. You're going to take care of her, because she's the most precious thing in the world, isn't she?"

Ricky nodded, "Yes, yes, God yes!" Tears and mucus and blood scattered the surface of the water – oh, shit, when had the nosebleed started, but Luna was already handing him a cloth and Neville reached around to staunch it as she tipped out the bowl.

"Then you can do this," she said simply, cleaning it out quickly before adding more of the mixture from her sachel and heating the fresh water with a stir of her wand. "Neville and I are going to stay here as long as it takes to help you."

"Can't." The little bit of renewed strength the potion and water had given him seemed to have gone straight to a revival of the vicious trembling, and Ricky was fighting to get the words past the tremors. "The C-C-C-Commander...h-h-he's – gotta – d-d-d-unno know how l-long, I c-c-can't ask – "

"You don't have to ask." Neville reached down to press a gentle but firm finger to silence him. "You trusted me, and you fought for me, and you came back for me, and you came back a second time and fought again even after you lost the person you loved the most. Look at your arm."

"Yeah?"

"What do you see there?"

"DA. T-two, five, n-n-ninety eight."

"Exactly." He turned his own arm to display the matching insignia, and a quiet smile was exchanged over Ricky's head as Luna offered her own in fellowship without any need to be asked. "I'm going to contact Harry," Neville continued, "and I'm not telling him anything other than that one of mine needs me, and that I'm going to help them for as long as they need, and he's going to understand, because he knows what comes first, and what always will."

"DA?"

He nodded, giving Ricky a careful squeeze on the shoulder. "DA does whatever it takes. DA take care of each other."

"DA don't...don't...don't -" But now the shivers had turned to outright spasms, and Ricky had curled off of Neville's lap into a fetal ball that somehow managed to gasp out the maxim that had always been a lie in some ways but not in any of the ways that mattered to those who knew what it really meant. That it could be felt with the skin, the nerves, the bones, the heart, even, but it could never be allowed to be _felt _enough to let it matter enough to stop you when the something more that had claimed and changed and bonded and broken and strengthened them all needed you. "- feel pain."

"That's right," Luna lay down beside Ricky, ignoring the puddle she had just made from the water bowl as she wrapped her arms around him. "And just because I wasn't with you all year doesn't mean I'm not with you now."

There was a low, awful moan, and he twisted his head back to try and look at her, his voice strangled and thin. "Lieutenant?"

"Yes?"

"Get up. Quick. DA or not, this is gonna be bad." And it was. Not just that round, but everything it promised and that Neville knew would be fulfilled about the time to come, but he felt nothing but determination as he knelt to clean and soothe and refill and restrain and everything else that it all meant, because it was as true as it ever had been. DA took care of each other, and Draco was right; they were absolutely still all his and Merlin help them, he still loved them and owed them and needed them a thousand times more than they did him.

OOO

Ricky was sleeping. Just sleeping, not thrashing or begging or screaming or vomiting or trying to claw at himself, and although there was a part of him that felt guilty for taking Luna up on her offer to see the rest of it out and her promise that the worst was over, there was a much larger part to whom the simple lights of the house on Maxstoke Street looked like an oasis after a very, very long journey. Neville knew, of course, that there was still so much to do; his parents' funeral arrangements would be pressing on top of the caseload he'd already carried and his first day of the Wizengamot now looming only three days distant, but right now, just being out of that hellish flat was relief enough. That he hadn't hesitated, that he didn't regret, that he'd do it all over again didn't change the ordeal of it.

The lawn was haphazardly tended, the flowers tucked into the single bed near the front stoop simple garden center perennials with as many weeds as intentional blossoms, a plastic pail upended beneath the shrubbery, a lone little trainer forgotten in the dirt, and a single row of snap beans crawling almost wild up the side of the stairs. It was their headquarters for the time being, but it still murmured sleepily that it was a _home, _that things were usually right here and bustling with happy, healthy, busy little people whose parents had so many things to do better than trim hedges. Neville smiled, bending to pick up the lost shoe and tucking it into his pocket, looking up as someone's laughter broke the quiet of the suburban night.

He had been needed at Ricky's, he had belonged there in all the power and purpose of duty that would never fade, but he belonged here too. Not only because he had tasks waiting, but friends as well, and there too the familiar faces of his DA, still strong and still fighting in their own ways. For all that he had been an only child and orphaned in practicality so long before in fact, he had wound up with a family so much broader than himself and Hannah, and he needed them now.

They had already given him the coded spell to cast against the door, but he still knocked as he opened it, not wanting to startle anyone inside. He hadn't realized how much of a chill still bit the May night, but it was warm inside, and he added his robe to the pile of matching green already turning the hatstand by the door into an odd woolen parody of a Christmas tree.

He was about to announce himself, but a door had already opened, and Zach came out, grinning as he clapped Neville firmly on the shoulder. "We were seriously considering sending out a search party for you, mate." The grin faded slightly, the blue eyes narrowing as they evaluated what he knew had to be visible weariness. "Is everything all right?"

Neville nodded, returning the smile as he followed the other man into the sitting room. "It is now, yeah. Glad to be here, though. Thanks again for letting us use this place, Zach."

"It's fine, I mean it," Zach chuckled. "This house wouldn't know what to do with itself empty."

It certainly wasn't empty. Neville couldn't keep himself from smiling as he took it all in. Mugs of tea and coffee, glasses of water, bottles of beer and cider and fizzy drinks, packets of snacks and sweets and plates of food and piles of paperwork and ink and research tomes in various stages of consumption were everywhere, filling every square inch that wasn't already occupied with toys and photographs and children's books. The wireless was playing something jazz that teetered on the edge of they'd have once danced to it and bloody hell they'd gotten old enough to listen to _that stuff._

The whole scene was so powerfully reminiscent of the time they'd spent living in the Room of Requirement that he half expected to see Mike and Terry curled together working on something bogglingly elaborate and Latin _there _and Sloper a moment from getting slapped by Morag _there _and Ernie to come through the door if he just called his old friend's name, but somehow, the memories were sweeter than bitter, and only made those who were there more dear. Harry sat atop the coffee table with Demmy at his feet, brushing out a snarl in her hair with the skill of someone whose best friend had a similarly exuberant mane. Ron was splayed in the middle of the floor with his chessboard, Tony draped upside-down in one of the armchairs with his legs dangled on the backrest, the prosthesis – shoes and all – propping his head up as he read.

It was Tony who greeted them first, at once welcoming and guarded. "Commander, you're back! What happened?"

Neville shook his head ruefully, scooping out a spot on the armchair opposite as Zach resumed what had clearly been his previous perch across the back of the couch whose cushions had been overrun. "I can't talk about it, I'm sorry."

"No worries, we assumed as much." Harry didn't look up from the web of hair in his hands, but the authority in his voice brooked no question about the boyish pose or green and gold _Holyhead Harpies _pajamas. "I just need to know three things, and I need you to give me your word on them."

"Tell me what they are first," Neville replied, pulling off his shoes and looking around for a place to put them before giving up and just sort of tossing them towards a part of the room that didn't seem to have anything important or fragile.

"One, that you swear this was personal DA matters and has nothing to do with the Nevermore case," Harry began, pausing to push his glasses up on his nose again with one shoulder, his hands still busy. "You know I can't have you freelancing. Two; that you're not withholding any important information from us, and three; that you can be properly back on duty now, because if you're going to keep disappearing like this, I'm going to have to drop you again."

"Yes, no, and yes."

Twisting her neck awkwardly to keep the top of her head in the same position, Demmy strained to see him around the edge of the couch. "Are _you_ okay, Commander? You look like hell."

"I'm exhausted," Neville admitted, shrugging. "I need a proper meal, I need to know what's been going on in the outside world, and I need about fifteen hours of sleep."

Without getting up, Zach reached down to the couch and picked up an empty container of Pot Noodle, chucking it a well-aimed few inches shy of the edge of the chessboard. "Ron, get him the first one, I'll fill him in on the second, and I'll give him my bed for the night. He doesn't need to be crashing in a bed made for a nine year old."

The size of most of the beds in the Smith household hadn't occurred to him, but after two nights of grabbing a few hours on a hard and dirty floor, Neville felt the sudden urge to express the individual gratitude of every muscle and knot in his back. "Thank you. _Really_."

"Ahem." Ron tapped him on the shoulder, at the side of the armchair now with what looked like someone's discarded sock draped formally over one crooked arm. "Tonight, Chez Auror Department is offering bolognase, frozen meat pies, a couple of tragic bangers with box mash, or a selection of steamed dumplings sent by Auror Goldstein's wife that the rest of us aren't supposed to know about. Your preference, sir?"

A sudden, strangled noise of protest erupted from the other chair, and Tony shot bolt upright, flipping himself over so quickly that he almost took the furniture with him. "You son of a –"

"Share and share alike." Ron wagged a finger at him reproachfully. "We're all in this together."

"Not with my zhengjiao we aren't!" Tony retorted. "It's the only thing here that isn't riddled with pork."

Ron made an offended face, flicking the sock at him. "The bolognase isn't."

Tony caught it one-handed, whipping it back around on an immediate return course that caught Ron full in the face. "If that mince ever knew what a cow was, I'll eat my badge."

"I'll have the meat pie anyway," Neville cut in quickly, seeing the sparkle in both men's eyes that said that legs would soon be on, gloves off, and more importantly, dinner forgotten. "Do we have any brown sauce?"

"Do we have any…" Zach made an incredulous snort. "Commander, I have children. Of course we do. How else besides cheese do you think Meg and I get veg into the little monsters?"

Ron and Tony were still sizing up whether or not they wanted to continue, but thankfully, Neville's hopeful look seemed to decide the matter, and Ron draped the sock over his arm again with a broad, sweeping bow. "Two meat pies with brown sauce coming up. Bitters, some of your wife's house ale, or cider?"

Neville could not remember when he had felt quite so much like kissing another man. "You bloody ginger angel, do you really need to ask?"

"Pint of the Leaky's best, then. Right up."

"So…" Zach sat up as the kitchen door closed behind Ron, rotating to resume his sprawl with his head now facing Neville. "While you were off doing whatever it is has you smelling like the bin behind a Glasgow whorehouse – and seriously, mate, strip off and I'll get you something less pungent – we lot have been working our wands to the core."

He hadn't considered the aroma from Ricky's might have followed him despite the precautions of a shower and having his robes cleaned, but when he sniffed at the sleeve of his undershirt, he was embarrassed to find that the quick scrub in the sink very definitely hadn't been enough. Neville felt himself blush, already pulling it free of his belt and over his head. "Sorry."

"Not a word." Zach waved dismissively, already moving on. "Ron's been running chess metaphor – but I'll let him fill you on that when he gets back – Tony's been having kneazles because he's matched Dumbledore's fingerprints on one of the ink stains on that last scroll, Harry's been locked up with Justin so much I think they're having an affair –" He barely ducked the hairbrush as it sailed past his head. "—and I've run down the lead our favorite ferret so generously supplied."

The socks and trousers had also been assessed as Have To Go, and Neville glanced up from where he'd been emptying his pockets onto the side table. "Any luck on that?"

"Brilliant. Thanks to cuts, there were less than a half dozen who had the ability to grease the cauldrons on the kinds of ingredients we're talking about, and I did a little poking around until I found the gentleman with the robes that – thank you Ernie for your drunken wool-related babbling, wherever you are– were a bit more posh than his pay grade. Gimme those." A wave of his wand, and Zach had levitated the laundry and sent it zipping out the door. "I can hit the hamper from anywhere in the house."

Normally, Neville was modest almost to the point of paranoia, not wanting to attract attention to the more undeniable evidence of his past, but with this group, he felt no hesitation about flopping back in the chair in nothing but his shorts to skim over the file Zach had indicated from the heap on the floor. "Dan Wilson," he read aloud. "Requisitions and approvals clerk for banned and restricted substances. He'd be in a perfect position, wouldn't he? And it would explain why we've been having such trouble tracing our sources…they're all 'perfectly legitimate.'"

"I seized his files for the last thirty days. At least three of the supposed research projects he approved requisition for don't exist. The names of the supposed scientists look like they've just been lifted randomly off of the signs of nearby businesses, and it looks like the ingredients list from NEWT levels with Slughorn. Here you go." Zach caught the summoned DMLE t-shirt and track pants as they soared into the room, offering them to Neville.

Demmy's hair had been plaited tightly now, and she was tying off the end as she came over to glance at the report herself. "I take it he's been relieved of duty?"

"Actually," Zach corrected, "we had a very productive discussion. He gets to keep his job for the time being and get marks for full participation when he does come up before the courts and in the mean time, we get the original requisition forms before he corrects the paperwork, if you follow me."

Tony raised his half-filled mug of tea in a toast. "Hopefully, right to the Bristol Blue."

"Or at least some of his top brewers," Demmy agreed, "and someone has to know the bastard himself."

Harry was examining Ron's abandoned chess game, but he looked up at the mention of their elusive Potions Master. "You're on that tomorrow, Nev. I want that son of a bitch tagged quick. I gave you two and a half days off, but that means you're two and a half days behind."

Despite the awkwardly twisted position with the clean shirt half-on, Neville managed to shoot him a glare through the neck opening. "That was not a holiday, Harry."

"If it was I wouldn't have given it to you. The last time any of the rest of us saw a day off was two weeks ago at the picnic."

He paused incredulously, one leg half-in the trousers. "Was that only two weeks ago?"

Demmy nodded with a weary smile. "Second to sixteenth May, Commander."

"Good to know you can count, Dem. Nice to see in a Cornish lass." They all looked up at the experienced, patronizing tease of a five times younger and once older brother as Ron re-entered the room with a gloriously steaming plate in one hand and pint glass in the other.

Neville took the supper gratefully, trying not to chuckle at the exaggerated look of offense cast at him from Demmy along with the two fingers she offered Ron. "Commander, I'll get you another meat pie if you shove that one –"

"If anyone's going to do that," Zach interrupted dryly. "It's Harry or Hermione. "

"I don't want to know." Tony made a face, sliding down from the chair to crawl across the room towards the group. "Whatever you three are into is your business."

Ron stuck his tongue out, even as he offered a hand to help Tony up onto the arm of the couch. "Suck dumplings."

"Not all the way from Scotland," Tony fired back.

The meat pies were cheap, the filling tasting of little more than salt, but Neville couldn't have cared less, and he had wolfed down almost half of one before he remembered that there had been more important matters at hand. "Did Zach say something about you finding a fingerprint?"

"Unfortunately, yes. To say I'm getting nervous is an understatement. I've been looking into what possibilities there are for variations on Infiri, but it's not going to be easy with Mike and Terry cremated and Steve somewhere beneath the Puget Sound."

Harry had finished with the chess board, and now he scooped a space free on the couch to join the rest of them. "You're starting to think they're the real thing, then."

"More and more likely," Tony agreed, sighing. "But that's still just as impossible as it ever was. If we'd botched it, it would have been in the direction of the chamber never being able to be opened rather than opened too easily; Terry made sure of that."

"But how sure are we of Terry?" Demelza asked.

"There were a lot of odd things about him," Tony admitted, "and he was doing some stuff he shouldn't have, but his data was never, ever wrong."

Harry had closed his eyes, leaning forward over his knees, fingers steepled under his chin, and Neville could all but see his thoughts churning. "What if his source was wrong?"

Tony shook his head. "He never used just one. Not for something like this."

"Thank Merlin you moonlight for the Unspeakables." Demmy reached out, squeezing Tony's shoulder in support. "If there's anywhere we'd find a loophole in this mess, it would be the DoM."

"I've been on it. I've even revived some of my old skills at breaking into restricted sections, although the ones at work are a lot tougher than the ones at Hogwarts."

Her smile was grim, but there was something almost defiant about it. "Good thing you've gotten tougher too."

"And you, Demmy?" Neville gestured at her with the last bite of the first pie before popping it into his mouth. "How's your end coming?"

"I've been with the Coroner every step of the autopsy process. We've all but taken the bodies –" She hesitated, obviously uncomfortable with exactly how far to continue. "Commander, are you sure you really want to…well, the gist of it is, Sir, is that they're AKs. Not an AK to cover poison or assault or anything else. Just straight. And it's all the same energy signature, so we can definitely confirm that we're looking at a single killer, but it's not one from any previous unsolved cases…or solved cases, for that matter."

"A truly unknown suspect, then." Neville felt suddenly as if all the tiredness had found him again. "Lovely. Do we have _anything _to go on?"

"They are definitely watching us, and there doesn't seem to be any doubt now that the scrolls and the murders are connected." Harry's eyes opened now, locking his. "Particularly you, Neville, which no offense, is a bit odd considering I was Dumbledore's pet project."

Neville frowned. "How do we know?"

"Scheduling."

"What do you mean?"

Harry sat up straight again, fully in Auror mode as he fished his notepad from the pocket of his pajama trousers. "After the first one, the ravens really have been heralds of death. We got the second one on the third, your Gran was killed that night. Then a space of three days, one at the funeral, within an hour of when Rita Skeeter would have been killed according to the autopsy. Three more days space. Another scroll on the tenth, matching to Jones almost to the minute, we both woke up to another on the eleventh with your parents killed overnight, and the longest space we've had so far between scroll and murder with the former on the thirteenth and Shacklebolt the following day. But no scrolls or murders since." He glanced up from the notes, closing the pad. "Are you seeing it, Nev?"

"Length of the gaps?" Neville guessed.

Harry shook his head. "Coincidence. The clearer pattern, Nev, is your visibility."

"My visibility?"

The pad was flipped open again, his fingertip following the tight handwriting down the page. "The fifth through the seventh, you were locked up in Willow Creek preparing for your grandmother's funeral, but you show up _for _the funeral, we get hit again. Eighth through the morning of the tenth, you were still busy at the Creek, and again a gap, but when I compared the list of your movements you'd given me to the scrolls, we were hit within an hour of you going out to Diagon Alley –"

"Because we'd minimized perishables at the Leaky and were having guests that night and I needed to go to the butcher for Hannah."

"You were seen by our unknown, and over the next four days, you're everywhere and we get hit with four victims back to back to back. You vanish again on DA business, and not a peep. "

The half-eaten pie dropped to the plate. "Oh, fuck."

Zack sat up, scowling at the abrupt change in tone. "Commander?"

"On the way here," Neville could hear the hollow horror in his own voice as the realization dawned. "I stopped in Diagon Alley to get my robes cleaned, and I poked around a dozen shops or so while I was waiting. I have definitely, definitely been seen, and I got there what would be about -"

As if completing his sentence, a harsh, hatefully familiar bird's cry sounded through the house, and he could see his own chilled reaction mirrored on every face. No one moved as the twin ravens appeared with their tightly rolled cargo, dropping the scrolls like a pair of grenades at Neville and Harry's feet before vanishing. Ron was the first to find his voice, and even then, it was barely a whisper. "Long enough, it seems."

He didn't know how long it was that time seem suspended, no one even breathing, then Harry exploded into action, climbing to his feet and straight over Zach to practically dive for the coffee table and its pile of paperwork. "Demmy; our hot list!"

She didn't miss a beat, reciting crisply from memory from halfway under the armchair where she was retrieving her shoes. "All the Weasleys, everyone at the Loch, everyone in this room, Diggle, Doge, Figg, Dung, Healer Monroe, all the surviving Hogwarts faculty from '98, and that's not counting internationals or family members of Order who were killed like Mrs. Tonks and Teddy."

"If Neville's been seen," Harry snapped, "that kills trying to control the strike by a deliberate exposure. We've got to move."

Ron had grabbed Tony's legs from the other chair, and all joking banter was forgotten as they worked together quickly to get him back into them. The stumps, Neville saw now, were swollen and raw, silently protesting that he had spent far more time in the prosthesis recently than was wise, but there was no sign of the pain that he had to be feeling as Tony yanked the straps tight. "We can't cover them all."

Harry had found what he was looking for in the pile, and he held it clenched between his teeth as he pushed his arm into his wand holster. "The Loch's a dragon's nest." The words were muffled but clear enough. "_If _anyone gets in, they're not looking at one target; they'd be better off attacking 10 Broadway. We're going to have to ignore extended family for now." Holster and wand secured, he jammed the papers into his pocket. "Neville, since this seems to be revolving around you more than me, who matters most to you?"

What was left of dinner had been abandoned without a second thought, and Neville found himself glad that he'd barely touched the ale as he started for the hallway, cinching his own holster back in place as he went. "Justin's my wife's best friend. He's also Shacklebolt's counterpoint, made contact with my parents, and is deeply placed in both governments. He'd be my pick if I were our unknown."

He could hear Harry's barked orders from the other room as he pulled the heavy pile of robes from the rack. "Zach. Justin. Now."

Zach met him in the doorway, snatching his robe from the heap in Neville's arms as he went by. "On it."

Harry caught his without looking, the Seeker's instincts still sharp. "After that?"

Neville quickly considered the answer, not wanting to make a mistake in haste as he passed the uniforms to Ron, Tony, and Demmy. "Sprout."

Harry glanced up from his shoelaces. "Tony?"

The dark curls bobbed in a crisp nod as he slid his wand into position, taking only a moment to make sure everything was correctly in place as he stood. "I have eight dumplings left, I will have eight left when I return."

Harry finished buttoning his robes, swiveling to Demmy now, but they were interrupted by the sharp jangle that Neville now recognized as the signal of a mobile telephone. Sure enough, Ron snatched the device from the pocket of his uniform robe, and the look of perfect balance between panic and relief that swept over his face when he glanced at the little screen was one Neville knew all too well and told him exactly who it was even before he had flipped it open. "Hermione! I'm so glad you – nevermind. Look, I need you to –"

All eyes were fixed on the freckled face as it suddenly froze, his lips moving soundlessly as something was said on the other side too faint for any of them to make out. Whatever it was, there was no question that it could not be good, and Neville felt the familiar chill squeeze of dread in his chest as he tried to force himself not to assume. Ron had begun to tremble, his eyes crammed tightly shut in an effort to maintain some kind of emotional control as he listened. "Mmmhmm…..I'm…I'm just glad you're…mmm….I'll…mmhmm…be there soon. Love you."

He snapped the phone closed, but it fell from his hand almost immediately as he barely caught himself on the back of the couch. Harry was at his side already, wrapping an arm around his best friend's shoulders to steady him, so close that his glasses were pressed askew against the side of Ron's head. "Ron?"

His hand grabbed Harry's so hard that the veins of his knuckles strained blue through the fair skin. "Oh, _shit_…"

Harry guided him carefully down, ignoring the pile of things that no longer mattered that they were sitting on. "Ron, you –"

At first, it seemed as though Ron was about to lose control, his chest heaving deep, gulping breaths, his cheeks alarmingly flushed, but then, as if Harry had passed him something between their clenched hands, he took a deep breath, and when his eyes opened again, they were tear-bright but clear. "We've got a breakthrough." His voice barely shook, and with another breath, it was so steady as to be utterly flat. "Hermione. She…she was at the Burrow. She walked in on it."

Harry gasped aloud, his other hand flying to his mouth, and no professionalism could hide his fear for the witch who was almost as close to him as the third of the trio she had married. "Is she –"

"Target not her." Ron's voice seemed to be fading further away, but it was still too perfectly calm. "Target Mum and Dad. She didn't get a clear look, but she startled our unknown, and the shots went wild."

Neville swallowed hard, refusing to believe that this could have happened again to another of them so soon. "They're all right, though?"

It had been a foolish hope, but he almost shouted aloud with relief when the ginger head nodded faintly. "Mum was grazed. Dad was hit with a ricochet. They're both at St. Mungos. She didn't say more, she was talking to the Healers."

Harry did shout, or something like it; the noise was a mixture of a dozen emotions intensified beyond bearing, and as he looked up from their clutch, Neville realized that the Weasleys were for all intents and purposes Harry's parents too. For a single heartbeat, the three pairs of eyes met, and the understanding that flashed between them was too terrible to hold or think about. Harry broke it first, helping Ron to stand again and recovering the tone of the Head of the Auror Department in the armor of responsibility that Neville knew well.

"Someone grab caffeine for Nev. We're moving out." He smiled fiercely, and Neville shuddered, because the last time he had seen that particular look on Harry's face had been just over ten years ago on the cusp of dawn in a circle of bloody footprints. "God love Hermione, we've got a fucking witness."

OOO

How often did hospitals change their flooring? Not often, he supposed. Too much disruption, too much expense – especially now – and it would almost certainly just be replacing the utilitarian off-white flecked linoleum with...more utilitarian off-white flecked linoleum. There really was absolutely no good reason to have done it within the last ten years. Certainly not to get rid of a few scratches in it that most people wouldn't even notice and fewer still would recognize.

It was practical, and practicality was, like it or not, the first concern at hospital, where the harsh realities of trying to save lives so often trumped anything else. Practicality had said when a small hospital with only six hard trauma beds and eight beds in Critical Spell Damage suddenly found itself deluged with over 200 patients, the results would not be pretty and triage would reign as brutal, absolute king.

It had meant evacuating all the wounded from the school and then having nowhere to put them. It had meant people – moaning, crying, sobbing, bleeding, _hurting _people – in every kind of bed including maternity, in the waiting chairs, and still spilling over onto the floor before you even counted in the loved ones and law enforcement who stood solace and sentry. It had meant trainees running out into Muggle London with handfuls of hastily gathered pound notes and coins, coming back with codine and bandages and aspirin and iodine because they had run out of _everything_. It had meant Healers shoving bricks of chocolate into their mouths so fast that they had clown-like masks of brown because they were using magic so hard and so much that sometimes they still couldn't stay ahead of it and fainted right there in the halls, sometimes onto those they were supposed to be helping.

It had meant trying to keep track of his DA as they were moved here and there and explaining why Death Eaters triaged red got help before child soldiers triaged yellow, and why losing a limb could be yellow if your vitals were good, and getting water and begging for pain medication on behalf of his people and being told they couldn't be dosed until they were seen and all of them too exhausted to help each other even with the simple healing spells they'd learned and bystanders and family strictly forbidden to do anything without a Healer's authorization. It had meant telling them they were brave and strong and could just hang in there a little longer, the distant past echoing the recent.

It had meant holding Tony's hand while the shock wore off and he'd started to feel the meaning of crushed and then Li offering that if enough people could carry her over, she'd take Neville's place and let him go to where Naomi was screaming for him. She'd taken 40% burns, her entire back a livid mass of fist-sized blisters that were the better parts among the patches of seeping black. It had meant trying promises and slogans and soothing and then just reaching down and gently putting pressure on a nerve cluster until she passed out. When they'd finally, so many hours later, gotten to her and taken her away, he had first noticed the scratches on the floor made by her belt buckle as she'd writhed in pain. They were still there. It was practical.

It was practical that someone who lived the life he had, whether by choice or fate, had spent a lot of time in this hospital. His DA, his parents, his time with the Aurors, the aftermath of the nearer than almost anyone knew miss at Druim Cett that had still cost them dearly enough. It was practical, too, that he was here now in this waiting room again, even if it was strange to for once be the outsider, uncomfortably aware that he didn't belong in the room where the Weasleys were trying to cope with what had befallen their close-knit family.

It was practical, because he simply didn't have anywhere else to be. Staying at Zach's house just seemed wrong when everyone else had been sent out on frenzied assignments, but Harry had known full well Neville was too tired to guard so much as a zebra crossing right now. For the same reason, there was no point in trying to work on his own cases, and both Willow Creek and the Leaky were entirely unbearable. So he was here, vaguely assuming he might be of some comfort to Ginny if she wanted or needed it, holding his paper cup of mostly cold and completely cheap tea, and trying so hard not to fall asleep in the hard chair that was moulded exactly wrong for any human being's backside.

It was a fight he was rapidly losing. He'd caught himself nodding off twice now, and the third time was realized with a jerk and a splash that soaked his ankles with clammy liquid. Neville blinked hard, shaking his head, and it took him entirely too long to realize that 1) he had dropped the tea and 2) someone was standing in front of him.

Someone with shoes but no socks, green pajama trousers with gold snitches, and the hem of a green Auror's robe. His eyes wandered slowly up, catching the black and gold bands of rank at the wrist, taking in the pale, drawn face and the glasses and the scarred brow for what seemed like a very long time before it connected to an identity. "Harry -"

He jumped to his feet, embarrassed, almost slipping in the spilled tea, but Harry waved him down again, vanishing the puddle and cup with a twitch of his wand as he took the next seat. "Charlie just got here. Saz is bringing Ginny down from the Loch." He sighed, running his hand through hair that was too tousled already to notice the gesture. "I wish she could Apparate safely, but she's too far along."

Neville nodded in genuine sympathy, the presence of another person pushing the need for sleep back more than all the useless cups of tea could hope for. "How are they?"

"They're saying Molly is going to be fine. She's incredibly healthy for her age, and it barely grazed her." He gave the report with no expression, none of the expected relief of the news, his voice mechanical, and Neville knew the answer almost before he asked the question.

"Arthur?"

"It was a ricochet, but it caused severe fibrillation, and he's not as young as Susan was. He's on life support, but it's really just until his family gets here to say goodbye."

There was still no emotion, and Neville hesitated against the instinct to reach out and comfort. He knew that place, and he knew how fragile the control could be and how badly it was sometimes needed. Yet at the same time, there was no option to just let it go, and he compromised by extending his words rather than a hand. "Harry, I'm so sorry."

"It doesn't seem real." A dark something distantly related to a smile tweaked Harry's lips as he leaned his head back against the wall behind the chair, taking his glasses off and hanging them from his knee as he rubbed at the creases of tension between his eyes. "It probably sounds twisted, but there's something easier when you can see it. I've seen enough AKs – fuck, Nev, we've both seen too damn many – but I can never quite believe they aren't about to wake up. Ron's all torn up. I think they might have to sedate George. He's still not really over Fred."

"What about you?" Neville asked cautiously. "How are you doing?"

"I'm an Auror." The green eyes opened with a self-deprecating smirk. "I'm someone who's seen enough people die. I'm hanging on because my wife is going to need me a lot more than I need to be upset over this."

The shift of the accompanying shrug knocked the glasses to the floor, and this time it was Neville who did the favour of retrieving them, returning them to Harry with a sad smile of his own."I wish I didn't understand."

Harry took them, rubbing them reflexively to clean them on a handful of his robes, but he didn't put them back on right away, and Neville discovered there was something disconcertingly intense about being stared at without the customary shield of the lenses. "Sometimes I wonder how you did it; the way you and the DA still are, it must have been..."

"It was." Neville looked away, staring down at the practical linoleum and its scars between his feet. "I still think about them all the time."

"We've got to stop this, Nev. I don't care what it takes, we've got to hunt this motherfucker to the ground and make this end. It's already gone way, way too far." Harry stopped, clearly remembering how many of the names on their list of victims were already the same as the man beside him. "...But I don't have any right to be telling you that."

"No, please," Neville made himself look up again. "I couldn't agree more."

"I just...I want it to end." Now the glasses did go back on as Harry gestured vaguely around the bleak little room. "Not just this, I mean -"

"The ravens. Dumbledore. Riddle, even."

"Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and I swear I can hear him laughing at me. I have nightmares that he's going to come back a second time. There's a mental part of me that's been wondering if this is him, to be honest."

Maybe it was pure fatigue compelling the honesty in both of them, but there was no thought of meeting such a confession with any attempt to shield his own pride. "I have nightmares about him too. I think we all do. And I only saw him once."

"He set you on fire, though." Harry made a tight, odd noise that would have been a giggle on a better day. "That would leave an impression."

Surreally, Neville heard himself return the laugh. "Fair enough."

A timeless stretch that couldn't be bothered with words or with being awkward at their absence lolled between them until eventually, Harry was the first to send it on its way. "Tell me the truth about something, will you, Nev?"

"Sure."

"Do you think he's really out of me? Ginny says I'm being ridiculous, but when I can stand back from the bed and watch George just _screaming _with tears and I'm just...cold." A fine, glassine thread of fear stretched sharp and fragile beneath the empty strength of his expressionless tone. "My head's running motives and anxious to interview Hermione and wanting to go back to the Burrow and measure angles and trajectory and look for prints and...and how would I even know the difference between memories of him in my head and whispers that he's still there? I carried that fucking parasitic monster like an egg sac for sixteen years and didn't even know it. How can I be so sure I still don't?"

The first impulse was to simply say no, to say of course not, don't be silly, because that's what he wanted the answer to be. He didn't want there to be any possibility of Harry's fears having so much as a fragment of a grain of a foothold in reality, but it was for the very fear of that Neville made himself stop and truly consider it. His memory offered him Harry's eyes over a lost officer at the foot of blood-drenched stairs, and the red glimmering something that he had thought was the reflection of a curse at the time until he had realized later that there was a cease-fire and that reflections would be on rather than behind the glass. It was something he'd seen again a few hours later across a sneering Body-Bind, but never since, and it was in that he found the conviction to reply.

"Because you let him kill it, even when you thought it was going to kill you. It tried to curl you up and protect itself and you forced it down and into that forest and held it down to die. I know a lot of my guys are still angry that you 'didn't do anything' for most of that year, but I don't think they understand that you weren't fighting Riddle for ten minutes at the end; that it was a miracle you didn't run away to keep that piece of him safe." He took a deep breath, a little startled to hear the things he hadn't known he'd already known coming to the surface. "You fought him, like you said, for sixteen years, and once you'd started going after the other horcruxes, that one must have put up a hell of a fight to keep its container from killing it."

There was an odd look on Harry's face that wasn't quite defensive or accepting, as if taking the answer Neville had given him and turning it over slowly in his palm at arm's length. "But I can still be a sociopath when the man who was like my father is lying in there dying."

It wasn't really an argument or a question, but Neville understood both what it was and wasn't because it was nothing new to his own inner voice. "You can still be a leader. Maybe they're a little alike, but if you are, then so am I. You were talking about me losing the DA. They were like my friends and my kids and my siblings, and I wrote down names and searched pockets and looked for body parts and took their families to the broken corpses and I didn't even really cry until almost a week later. It's doing what we have to. What do you think you'd have done if you didn't have to worry about anyone else?"

"I can't even remember what that was like." Harry seemed quietly startled at the admission, as if discovering he no longer remembered the address of his aunt and uncle's house where he'd grown up. "Can you?"

"No."

"Riddle, the Diabhal Dubh, and now whoever this is. It doesn't fucking end!" He threw his hands up in frustration, letting them fall heavy and slack to his lap. "I just want to be able to live my life; I want to do my job and raise my kids and cheer Ginny to the championships."

"Tend my gardens and teach kids about phosphorus ratios in fertilizer," Neville agreed wistfully. "Know that when I get called home early it's only going to be for some silly childhood broken bone from jumping off a wardrobe or because Hannah's swamped at the Leaky and needs extra hands at the bar."

"Are we asking too much?" There was none of the sarcasm that could have been in the question, and there was none in Neville's reply.

"Maybe. We got into the world-saving business pretty young."

"Do you still hate _me_?"

It took a lot to catch Neville off guard any more, but this was certainly not something he'd been expecting, and he frowned, wondering if he'd mis-heard as he carefully phrased his answer. "Hate's a strong word, Harry. I never hated you."

The eye contact was held like handcuffs connecting them. "Five years ago, though, a lot of stuff came out, and we've just kind of ignored it. Is that still there?"

"Maybe you could have done more for us. Maybe we could have done more for you," Neville started to open his hand in what was meant to be an equivocating gesture, then fisted it again in worry that it would look like he was displaying the round scar in a way that could be easily misinterpreted. He hoped Harry hadn't seen. "You spent enough time at that school being laughed at and scorned, it's not really a surprise that you didn't automatically think we'd be all behind you."

"Is that a yes or no?" And this was why Dumbledore really had made the right choice, even if he could have had no idea when dealing with infants who had yet to even be born. He had never been this bold, this blunt, this willing to make the first move, and even now he couldn't quite make himself answer, instead turning the question around on Harry.

"Do you hate me?"

A tilt of the head that managed to be a smirk without the slightest motion of mouth or eyes. "Hate's a strong word, Nev."

"That's not an answer either," he pointed out softly.

For an entire breath, he thought and hoped that Harry would just drop it, but of course he didn't. "I resent you sometimes, I'll admit. I grew up in one kind of hell and then went off to another and I gave my whole adolescence for this world that loves to put my face on things but doesn't really give a shit about me, and I've lead them for years and worked my way up...and you come through the door and -"

He trailed off, but there was no question what he meant, and Neville nodded as he finished it. "It's 'Commander' all over again."

"And I know they'd follow you away from me in the flick of a wand. It makes me...like -" Harry's sigh was a burst of defeat as he pushed to his feet and stalked across the room to the bleakly humming tea urn and its pile of paper cups in the corner. He filled one, ignoring that it slopped the rim and would have scalded anyone other than a wizard as he gestured fiercely with it. "What do I have to do to really be accepted, and will it ever be enough, or do I even get to _make _that decision?"

Neville stood to join him and took a cup of his own, answering as he filled it even though he knew he didn't want the drink itself. "Dumbledore took a lot of decisions from both of us before we were born."

"I don't want to be Chosen, I want to choose for once."

"I resent you too, sometimes." He hid his eyes in the swirl of the steaming brown liquid as he marbled it with milk. "I've told myself enough about the horcruxes, and I mean it, and I know, but it was still damned hard to do that alone, Harry, and the reason we're still that tight is that we were all each other had. And for all that Dumbledore made you a tool, he still gave you _something_. He completely ignored me; let me believe I was completely worthless, and then I find out he still had the audacity to assume I would be his backup plan."

"I know."

"They feel like you don't get it, a lot of them. That you don't really appreciate what they did...or how much they did it for you." The first sip stung but didn't quite burn, and there was a bracing courage to the little jolt more like scotch than cheap, bitter tea that had been overbrewed an hour ago. "Giving Al the middle name Severus didn't help with that."

It had clearly hit a nerve, as was not unexpected, and Harry set to pacing, an edge of fervour rising in his voice that sounded so much like the breathless insistence of the boy who had started the DA back when it really was only a homework club but even then stood for so much more. "I want this to be over, Nev. _We _decide how much of the hate goes on. _We _decide if James is going to hate Scorpius the moment they walk through those doors because their parents did. We both lived the cost of that. Snape did so much of what he did to us because of what he still hung onto between him and my father. I know damned well Dumbledore shined Snape up for me to make me work with him, but. -"

He spun to face Neville, robes flaring, and every tense line of his posture was a threat as much as a plea for understanding. "- if I can have every paper and magazine in our world publishing that I named my kid after Snape because I say I forgive him and he wasn't all bad, maybe, _just maybe _someone else will pick forgiveness over keeping a grudge going and wonder if there's more to someone else than the parts they hate."

There had been too many years with not only Harry himself but the other more ardent members of their House for Neville to rise to the passion of it, but he couldn't help but be touched by the reasoning he had admittedly never considered. "Why don't you say that to them?"

"They won't listen to me," Harry all but spat the return. "You're the Commander."

"They can't listen if you don't say," he retorted. "You're still carrying the grudge too, for them turning on you after Cedric."

Harry literally stopped mid-stride, blinking over a silent working of his mouth before it dissolved into a bashful little shrug. "Maybe you're right."

"And maybe you're right about setting examples," Neville offered back. "If you and I can let things go and work together...and it's not as if we don't have enough incentive."

"There's a world to save. Again."

Despite the importance of the discussion, Neville was starting to feel a bit sick with the effort of just standing, and he tilted his head towards the chairs, relieved when Harry followed him. "Have you ever thought about whether we can save it?"

"Every time," the answer was as assured as it was quick, and for all his own weariness, there was still a tightly coiled energy in Harry that made little sparks jump off the beads of condensation as he ran his finger around the rim of the cup. "But we keep pulling it off."

"No, I mean it, Harry." Neville sighed deeply, wishing he could close his eyes just for a few minutes but knowing what the concession would really mean. "I've been seeing a lot that's making me think that even if we save it again, it's doing too good a job of destroying itself and it's all going to fall apart within a few years anyway."

"Maybe." Harry shrugged over a swallow of tea. "But I'm not an economist. I'm an Auror. My job is to make sure that if it does fall apart, it's because a lot of people made little stupid choices and chewed the foundation out from under it like termites, not because one lunatic blew it up. But maybe that's how I was made to think; do my job, whatever the cost, and to hell with what's going on around me."

"You can't tend just one plant in a garden."

"I'm not a gardener."

"I'm not a Seeker."

"But you're a hell of a team captain."

There was no missing the true weight of the compliment, no matter how tired he was, and Neville finished the last of the tea, staring down at the tiny black flecks smeared over the bottom in the last few drops as if into the surface of a Penesieve. His voice was quiet, suddenly aware of how much the otherwise empty room still echoed. "You know, when I first came to Hogwarts, I couldn't believe they'd even let me in because I thought I was so much nothing. I don't think I've ever thanked you that the famous Boy Who Lived Harry Potter was nice to me. It was the start, maybe, of who I am now. The first thing that made me think, even for a moment, that I might be wrong about myself."

The cup crushed beneath his hand, and he set it aside to be binned later. Instead, he reached out to Harry, straightening his back and initiating the eye contact deliberately as he raised his voice to carry the authority that he refused to let be either shame or challenge with his former roommate. "Your go of it was hell. So was mine. Hell is hell, and we both did our best. We move on? No more resentment, no more grudges?"

Harry took his hand, clenching it right to the line between conviction and competition. "I'd be honored to have you as my friend, Neville Longbottom, and I'm sorry if I missed a chance at it years ago because I had my head up my arse."

It was real, and it was so long overdue, and he had rarely been so glad to have taken such a risk. "You were just saving the world, it's understandable. And I would be honored to have the just plain Harry Potter as my friend."

The moment was broken by the double pop of side-along Apparation, and the faint sound of voices in the other room rose on a wave of emotion. Harry sighed, all the weight of reality come back to roost. "And now it's time to do it again."

Neville took Harry's almost-empty cup from him, gesturing towards the door with firm compassion. "Now, actually, it's time for you to go be with your wife and say goodbye to your father in law. And then we'll get our people -"

His smile was boyish despite the hard, cynical eyes. "And _then _we save the world."

He knew that he was supposed to agree, that this was a big, inspiring moment, but he'd never been very good at that part of being a Gryffindor, and Neville heard himself blurt out the truth instead. "I really hope I can catch some sleep first."

There was a brief, bemused pause, then Harry laughed, clapping him on the arm. "Go ahead, Nev. Even heroes are human."

It was meant jokingly, but as soon as he said it, it gathered meaning like a snowball carelessly tossed on too steep a mountainside. Manipulated destinies and uprooted childhoods and heavy, lonely nights and too much responsibility too soon and the loneliness of command inextricable from the value of friendship and the absolute determination to get beyond it without being willing to walk away. It was tired and sore and hungry and irritable and grieving and overwhelmed and hopeful in a way neither of them were entirely sure of. Neville nodded, and the smile, faint as it was, held all of it. "We both are."

TO BE CONTINUED


	10. Apud Amphora

The furniture was back, the smell still lingering a little but mostly overpowered by the nearly visible clouds of vanilla-citrus incense that he had long ago come to associate as much with Luna as her name or her seemingly endless collection of outlandish jewellery. Luna herself was curled up asleep on the couch beneath a blanket covered in pink and purple flowers, and Neville kept his voice low so as not to wake her as he sat with Ricky at the newly replaced table.

He was looking better, certainly. For one thing, he was sitting upright, he was lucid, and there was some colour back in his cheeks and lips. That was not to say, however, that the suffering he had endured through the teeth of the withdrawal had left him unscathed; bruises still discoloured the side of his face, he had lost more weight that he definitely could not afford, and he looked easily a decade older than his true age. The temptation to help him as his shaking hands struggled with the packet of biscuits was strong, but Neville knew the importance of pride, and he pretended not to notice. "How are you feeling?"

"Kind of like shit still," Ricky shrugged, not quite ready to make eye contact yet, with a clear embarrassment at what his body's addiction had done to him in front of the others. "I've definitely had worse. Recently. I can't thank you enough for what you did for me, Commander. I didn't deserve half of that."

Neville shook his head firmly, though he caught the urge to intervene just in time as Ricky reached for a knife, putting an end to the packet's resistance with a merciless, slashing stab. "You can stop with that nonsense right now. I told you then, and I'll say it again that you wrote yourself a blank cheque on my loyalty ten years ago."

The look on Ricky's face as he finally met Neville's eyes was a study in pride layered and hardened brittle layer upon layer with self-loathing into the only thing holding him upright against the gales of the world. Being called a hero had meant so nothing that he had learned to hate the word, and he pushed it away on every word spat like a curse cast. "I was just a stupid kid who got in over my head."

It was begging and daring Neville to contradict him in a way that would matter, but he only smiled, accepting the biscuit with all the knowledge of how much preciously ill-afforded hospitality was offered behind the metallic aftertaste of cheap margarine and the stale texture of the bargain bin. "Weren't we all?"

"But what now, sir?" Ricky pressed, Rachel's engagement ring clattering softly against the table from his little finger as he clasped his hands in a vain attempt to keep them from shaking. "What about Nattie? What the hell do I do about that it still hurts and it's going to keep hurting and I don't want to go back there, but I still can't function and raise my daughter this way?"

He had barely made it through the last of the question, his voice catching and so almost breaking, and Neville reached across the table to wrap both of Ricky's hands in his and didn't wince from the warm droplets that fell on them. "I talked to Healer Monroe yesterday at St. Mungo's. I've got...a certain amount of credit with him as well. He's promised to get you with a pain specialist who can help you find options, and I've made him swear that he's going to accept what you tell him about how much pain you're in, not just what he thinks a bullet is supposed to feel like."

The gasp was like a bandage ripped from a wound, and Neville was ashamed for none of the reasons Ricky would have assumed as the other man's face raised in open everything. "I..." There were no more words, just a thick sob of horrible hope, and he felt something in his chest twist against memory as he saw a fleeting reminiscence of the barely teenage boy who had once looked at him with such trust from the same blue eyes.

"No," The quiet was not for Luna's benefit now. He couldn't have raised his voice higher if he had tried, and he squeezed Ricky's hands in the hope he could convey what he couldn't say. "I should have done that for you years ago."

Ricky pulled back, cuffing his face dry and swallowing a deep breath in an attempt to regain some composure before it was too late not to lose the rest completely. "And my Nattie?"

"Ginny says she's doing great," Neville answered honestly, grateful that he had thought to ask after everyone's children even through the emotional maelstrom of the morning. "She's having a ball with the lambs and the other kids, and she sends her love. You're going to keep her, Ricky. We'll make this work."

There was a deep, rattling breath, a biscuit shattered to crumbs that were more like dust between skeletal fingers. "If there's ever anything I can do for you, or for Luna...she's been amazing. You two probably saved my life. I mean, I doubt there is; I'm pretty much a loser, but -"

"Stop that," Neville cut in harshly. "If you were a loser, you wouldn't have made it this long, and Nattie wouldn't be the beautiful, healthy, happy child she is. Most nineteen year old boys wouldn't have been able to make it as single fathers at all, much less fighting an injury and a past and loss like you have, much less do it so well. And after your family walked away, no less."

Ricky's mouth tightened over what was still unforgiven, smashing the crumbs back into a dough-like wad in his fist. "They wanted me to put her up for adoption. They said I was choosing to ruin my life, but I can't believe that. I can't imagine any kind of career or whatever they think I would have had that would have been worth giving her away."

"You did the right thing." He meant it without reservation, and he allowed Ricky to search his eyes as deeply as he needed until at last he was satisfied, nodding back into the chair with a sigh as he popped the re-formed remains of the biscuit into his mouth.

"It doesn't feel like I've done right by her, sometimes. Her birthday was last month, you know? There was this dollhouse she wanted, but it's a month's rent, and there was no way." He shook his head in disgust at himself, but the expression changed suddenly, and Neville was about to ask if something was wrong when he brought his hand up to his mouth and spat the chipped and discoloured remains of a tooth into it. They exchanged a look awkwardly, and Ricky shoved it into his pocket, resuming quickly as if he could erase it from having happened. "So I got her some new clothes for her doll instead, but she's been asking if she's good enough, will she get the dollhouse, and it just breaks my heart every time she does the dishes or picks up her room and comes to me with these hopeful eyes..."

Neville had been avoiding the ulterior motive for his visit, ashamed that there even was one, but now he felt suddenly as though he had been given a chance to make it something better, and he smiled almost shyly. "I think I've got an offer for you, Ricky, if you're willing."

There wasn't the slightest hesitation. "As long as it doesn't hurt my baby, I'm willing to do absolutely anything for you, Commander."

He continued quickly, not wanting to lose his opportunity. "Will you be honest with me about where you were getting the pain potions? The ones in the blue glass bottles."

Any reluctance or pretence about his addiction had been washed away in sweat and vomit days ago, and Ricky didn't flinch, understanding perfectly. "You want to use me to nail my dealer."

"In a nutshell."

"Beyond willingly, Commander." The smile turned feral, unabashedly dangerous. "That bastard has been squeezing every Knut he can pry away from my baby's mouth in the name of making me functional, and he put me through the hell of those three days. How do you want him?"

Neville cocked his head, uncertain if he was missing some bit of slang. "How do I want him?"

"Large pieces or small?" Ricky picked up the knife again, spinning it between his fingers with a flourish that sent a shiver up Neville's spine because he knew it had been learned from Seamus back in the days when it had still been mostly idle flamboyance. "Got a preference for what colour the ribbon should be?"

"One piece, please, no ribbon necessary." He took the knife and set it back in the fruit bowl, using the cover of professionalism to keep it from being too paternal. "What I need you to do is pretend that the withdrawals were too much and you can't do it. That you're going back and need more, and I need you to set up a buy and give me the time and place so that we can have people there to make an arrest."

"Easy-peasy. I can do it for you as early as this evening if you want." The surprise at the short notice must have showed on Neville's face, because Ricky laughed with an eerily childlike delight at being able to surpass expectations. "He's amazingly available to sell shit and buy souls pretty much twenty-four seven."

"That's fantastic, Ricky," Neville enthused sincerely. "And the offer goes both ways. You get me the next link towards the Bristol Blue, I'll make sure you get that dollhouse."

He had thought it had already been implicit, but Ricky's reaction was the pure, overwhelmed shock of too good to be true. "Commander, that's -"

"There's a gentleman who has offered to be very generous with our petty cash, and I know for a fact he believes he owes you personally," Neville elaborated honestly, not wanting to take the credit for the generosity.

Ricky blinked, stunned. "Owes me?"

"Finch-Fletchley."

Neville almost held his breath, unsure of what to expect in reaction, but Ricky just nodded, the tears gleaming right to the edges of spilling over before he blinked them back, his voice trembling only a little. "That's very...is there any chance I can meet with him, Commander?"

He hesitated, not wanting to cause problems if there weren't any but neither willing to set his friend up for a grudge match. "Ricky, I know that you're still hurting terribly over Rachel's death, but it's not Justin's -"

"No!" Ricky seemed honestly taken aback at the implication, and he shook his head fiercely. "I don't want to blame or go at him or...no. I want to thank him. He did what I should have done, and a fucklot more than I'd ever expected from a toff. He's got some brass balls to go with that blue blood, you know?"

"That's for sure." Neville agreed candidly. "I think that can be arranged, though we'll have to work around his schedule."

The answer was obviously the right one, and Ricky started to slap his hands down on the table in punctuation, catching himself with a guilty glance towards the couch at the last instant and pocketing them instead with a sheepish smile. "So...uh, then I'll let you know on the Galleon as soon as I've got a time."

He glanced up, then stood, and Neville followed his look to the clock on the wall with the little handprints in fingerpaint on the face. It was time for him to be on his way. Five minutes past, in fact. He wished he could stay, but there was nothing for it, and he was collecting his things when Ricky interrupted. "Commander?"

"Yes?"

Ricky shuffled his feet, hands still deep in his pockets as he stared at the floor, what little Neville could see of his face bright red. "It's the Felicity Fairy Magic Paradise Palace with the lights. She wants the pink one."

Neville nodded with the solemnity of a man who had purchased many such items. "The pink one it is."

There was a long hesitation of not wanting to go and can't stay and too many things to say to say any of it that didn't need to be said anyway. Ricky's feet skimmed the floor a few more times, then he pulled his wand from his pocket, and his voice was so quiet and tentative as to verge on a time turner as he held it out, the tip glowing silver and reflecting in eyes that weren't ready yet to believe in anything right again. "Dumbledore's Army?"

His own wand had already been drawn in answer, and the silver glow matched it in place of the sparks that had belonged to a time of brazen defiance that had bought a world's future on credit they'd had no concept of ever needing to repay. "Dumbledore's Army."

OOO

Neville had come to the conclusion that as thinly padded and distinctly too short and thinly sheeted as the hospital cot Harry had found for him had been, it had probably saved his life, or at least his sanity. Today had been more than busy, and without those precious hours of desperately needed sleep, he'd probably have either curled up and started howling or just begun exploding pigeons in Trafalgar Square and laughing manically.

Briefing with Harry in the morning. Breakfast with Ginny trying in vain to offer some kind of comfort against her loss. Stopping by Ricky's to check in on him and set up the bust. Another lesson with Draco. To hell with Draco. A hysterical Floo from Chelmsford from a witch who was locked in her bathroom swearing the Nevermore killer had come for her and had actually just left the kitchen door ajar enough for a stray dog to get in and rummage noisily about. Meeting with the solicitor regarding his parents and Gran. Supper – or something like it – from a chippie so foul that he'd almost heard Hannah's reproachful voice in his head, but damn it, he was certainly working enough and only twenty-seven and still as lean as he'd been with the DA, so he could handle what had basically been a clump of burnt grease and salt in the shape of ex-potatoes and a chickenlike square. And now here.

The abandoned car stank of mold and stale smoke and things he didn't want to think about, but it was warm and dry and there was something soothing about the patter of the rain on the windscreen. It was almost too soothing, and it would be too easy to just doze off all over again even in the uncomfortable seat that was maybe another week of rot away from the springs coming through, and he glanced over at the man in the other seat, wondering if the silence thusfar had been coincidental or if it was concealing resentment at the simultaneously dull and dangerous assignment.

Ron's face was completely unreadable, the cant of the streetlight casting it into strange angles as the shadows of the raindrops made the freckles seem to grow and move across his features. He had buried himself in a mystery novel – the cheap, rote kind bought for a few sickles that Terry had once loved – but he hadn't turned a page in almost fifteen minutes, and Neville cleared his throat hesitantly. "You don't have to do this, you know. If you want to be with your family right now, I know Harry would understand."

The gentle offer seemed to startle him, and he glanced up, dog-earing the page and shoving the book under his leg as if he were still a schoolboy who had been caught at something naughty. "No, that's just it. I don't think I can take any more of that right now." He replied too quickly, looking away out the window, but Neville could hear the flushed cheeks and awkward guilt in his voice. "I _asked _Harry for this assignment, and frankly, Neville, I don't want to talk about Dad if that's okay with you."

"Of course," Neville agreed immediately.

"Change the subject, then?"

One of the springs, it seemed, wasn't going to wait a week, and Neville shifted, trying unsuccessfully to find somewhere to stretch out his legs a few more inches as he searched for something to talk about instead. Whomever had thought that a Peugeot was a great place for two rather tall men to conduct a stakeout... he sighed, giving up on the legs. "Before the ravens came, Zach told me you've been working on the diaries from the chess angle like I asked you to...or is that too close?"

"Nah, that's fine." Ron gave a slightly self-conscious, lopsided grin. "Chess is good. Chess is..." He frowned, moving his hands aimlessly in search of the word.

"Emotionless?" Neville suggested. "Rational? Sane?"

Ron shrugged. "Those work."

"Have you actually gotten anything out of it?"

"You were right." There was a pause, and Ron twisted oddly, making a face that Neville worryingly took for pain until there was a loud cracking noise. He had apparently noticed the attempts at finding more leg room and taken his own approach, simply severing the supports holding the seat in place with his wand. The odd look broadened into a grin of pure, smug satisfaction, and he pushed the seat all the way against the back bench, propping his heels on the dash. "All the chess metaphor is code for what he was doing with the Order."

Another flick of his wand, and Ron's coffee levitated from its wedged position behind the gear lever, coming to meet his hand as he gestured expansively. "He's assigned most of his top people and most of Riddle's best chess pieces, which threw me at first, because some of the moves he was describing didn't make good sense as a coherent game. But when I started plugging in names and putting it against what I knew of what happened, it all made sense."

The revelation came as a disappointment, and Neville felt his shoulders sag even as he tried to sound matter of fact about it. "So it's just a code. There isn't anything in it of actual chess."

"Oh, it's still got a lot to do with chess." Ron corrected him. "If you didn't play, you wouldn't get the moves and gambits he's referring to half the time."

That was more hopeful. Neville looked curiously back at Ron, but the twisted position necessary for anything like eye contact now was sorely unpleasant in the most literal sense, and he began to probe beneath his own seat with the wand, trying to make sense of the struts and supports Ron had clearly known so easily. "Decode it for me, then?"

"Sure thing. First of all, it's a little counter-intuitive that he's made his own pieces the black and Riddle's the white, unless you know that white always moves first."

Two main ones, it seemed, but they were connected to quite a lot of smaller things, and unlike the Weasleys, he had never grown up with cars; flying or otherwise. He wondered if there was anything it would be disasterous to cut. At least nothing felt live. "And he considered himself at that kind of disadvantage in the game."

"Absolutely. My Da-" Ron cut himself off, gulping down a sip of the had to be at best lukewarm by now brew to cover his near gaffe. "I've heard a lot about the first war, actually. I probably, not to brag or anything, know a lot more about it than you or Harry...or Hermione, for that matter."

Neville stopped, realizing now that in the rush and drama of the morning and all his attention on Ginny, he hadn't even noticed at the time that Hermione hadn't been there with the rest of the Weasley clan. "How's she doing?"

Ron sat up so quickly that he almost tipped the unmoored seat sideways, flailing a bit to catch his balance before jabbing the coffee towards Neville like a damp-stained paper threat. "Right. First of all, that's the whole about Dad thing that I said I didn't want to talk about. Second, the only thing I'd like to talk about less than that is my marriage. Got it?"

If one of them hadn't been stuck under the seat, sequentially pinching wires to make sure there was no hum of activity beneath the insulation, Neville would have raised both hands in surrender. "Got it."

For a long, tense moment, Ron appraised him through narrowed eyes, then seemed satisfied that there were going to be no more ventures into banned territory and flopped back again. "So, we're looking at spring of '80 to fall '81 - we've gotten diaries from across the lot now, and I've been asking around my family too - and at that point, the Order was losing really, really badly. Most of the talk I've heard about that era involves a lot of comparisons to a meat grinder." He broke eye contact, staring up at the roof of the car with a wistful tone. "That's when my uncles were killed, actually. There were like twenty-something Order vs. well over a hundred Death Eaters."

Neville's eyes widened, genuinely impressed. "Merlin, _we _had better odds than that _before _the kids got there at the Battle." He felt a pang of regret that he'd never pressed more deeply with his Gran about the era. There had been, instead, a sort of unspoken detente that neither would speak of the other's service if not quite necessary; not really from trauma or shame, but the certain likelihood that such a discussion might wind up with an excess of emotion.

Ron nodded solemnly. "And I remember thinking that this was what a firing squad felt like."

"You weren't at the gates."

Now Ron did look at him again, the tease of the words mismatched to the very real respect in his eyes. "Ok, so you remember what kissing your firing squad felt like..." He frowned, nodding down towards where Neville's twisted wrist vanished into the shadows. "Mind if I..."

"Please." Neville pulled his hands out of the way, bracing himself with the wheel so that he didn't fall back when the seat cracked free beneath him. He joined Ron in leaning back, telling himself that they made less of an outline this way anyhow, and with a swish of the wand like _so, _they could double the mirror and still watch their target area more than well enough.

Ron waited for him to get settled, then resumed. "Anyway. The odds, to put it mildly, sucked, and both of them knew that. Voldemort was playing an attrition game. He made sure that none of his pieces were ever isolated, so that any move by Dumbledore to capture would cost him one in return."

He was fairly sure he followed, but Neville didn't want to risk assumption on something he had a feeling was about to get fairly complicated, and he held up a hand to pause Ron so that he could clarify. "The Death Eaters never traveled alone, so any time the Order wanted to stop them doing anything, they'd be outnumbered and had to be prepared to lose someone, even though they couldn't afford to?"

"Exactly. And Dumbledore knew that was a gameplay he could never win, so he decided to try and play a double check on the king."

Neville shook his head, frowning at the unfamiliar term. He'd played chess a few times, certainly, and been told he hadn't done entirely badly for a complete beginner, but the terminology beyond the names of pieces was another matter. "You've just lost me."

Thankfully, Ron didn't seem at all offended, clarifying casually. "To set it up so that _Riddle _was isolated and would allow himself to be placed in a position where he believed he had a choice, but would be vulnerable to checkmate whichever way he moved."

"That's where my parents and the Potters came in?"

"The opportunity arose kind of by accident, really, but most do." Ron finished his coffee in a single, long gulp, crushing the cup and tossing it into the void beneath the bench. Something responded with a scuttling noise, and they both froze, eyes locked. Even in the dappled yellow light of the streetlamp, Neville could see the color draining from Ron's face, and he steadied the other man with one hand while he pointed his wand beneath them with the other. "_Avada Arachnia!" _

The jet of green separated, forking to an unholy number of places beneath the seats, and even though he had nothing resembling a proper phobia, Neville shuddered. Ron was sitting very, very upright now, shaking hard, and Neville reached out, grabbing him hard by both shoulders and pulling them close until their foreheads were an inch apart. "Dead now. All dead. You _cannot _freak out. We are on a job. Tell me more about what happened in '81."

Slowly, warily, Ron gulped down a few things that were like breaths until they were breaths and at last came almost easily again, and Neville let him go, although he couldn't quite bring himself to lie back down, and it was clear Ron couldn't either. Of course, neither of them were tired any more. Another breath, a shiver that was trying not to be gagging, and Ron started again. "Trelawney wanted a job, and when she realized she wasn't going to get it, she put it all on the line in a big showy attempt at a 'prophecy.'"

His voice had already strengthened, though Neville was amazed at how he managed to pack his long limbs into the tiny pool of seat that was completely lit. "The usual semi-poetic mystical crap she used to pull in class sometimes, with the added twist that there were rumors going on that your Mum and Harry's were up it and she thought she could use that to make it seem like she Knew Things."

The rain made it seem like _everything _was moving, and Neville tapped Ron's knee, trying to pull his attention back from where he was watching the blue eyes dart and crease in paranoia. "And he believed it?"

"Not for a minute, and he was going to still ask her to leave, but he smelled Snape outside the door and got a bright idea. He made a big deal of taking in Trelawney and protecting her and acted like he bought it, because he knew that Riddle was really into that sort of thing. All great leaders having prophecies and that bollocks. He also took Alice and Lily off duty and made a big deal of hiding them to back it up." The shadow of a raindrop on a bit of old fag ash died an obliterating death beneath a crashing open palm, but Ron showed no sign of remorse. "Even arranged to have labor induced on the same day at the end of July, although your Mum got it done a bit faster. But he was setting for a fork - I mean, kind of like building a giant fortress and then letting it leak that it has a hidden back door."

Neville nodded, grateful he hadn't needed to ask for the elaboration. "So you can have everyone there waiting. But why didn't he have everyone waiting?"

"Couple of reasons, it looks like. For one thing, he had information that Riddle was planning his strike for the Winter Solstice, which is more symbolically connected to death of the old and rise of the new."

It was a good thing, really, that they had sat up, mirror or not. Across the street, a figure had appeared beneath the overhang of the carpark, the distinctive limp more than identity enough despite the brim of the hat and the upturned collar of the coat. Ron saw it too, checking the door locks to make sure they could exit the car quickly, but Ricky was still alone, so Neville chose to keep going. "Why did he pick Halloween, then?"

Ron's smile was more like a smirk. "Because he could wander around openly looking like a freak and no one would bat an eye."

"That simple?"

"That simple."

Neville shook his head, wondering at just how often he had overlooked such obvious things himself as an Auror. "Mental."

"We're getting ahead of ourselves, though." Ron shifted, still unwilling to put any inch of himself outside the light. "He put Fidelius on both houses, but it was set up to be breached."

"By Pettigrew," Neville finished.

"By Lupin, actually."

The simple correction went against everything he'd ever heard about the incident, and Neville's back straighened so fast that his head banged sharply against the low roof. "What?"

"That's another one he overthought. There were going to be Order waiting at both houses on the Solstice, but Dumbledore thought that Riddle was going to choose your parents." Ron could obviously see his baffled shock, and he went on hastily.

"It was less of a stretch to say they'd faced him three times, and he thought Riddle would be more apt to choose a Pureblood family as his equals because his being a halfblood was his nasty little secret. So he set up the Potters with a decoy Secret Keeper in Sirius Black and put the real SK with someone he thought no one would ever suspect much less attack; Pettigrew. The SK for your parents was Lupin, who was supposed to set himself up to be captured on the full moon which was the night before Solstice and 'confess' while he was still weak and sick from transforming. Which would hopefully make Riddle have a sense of urgency that he had to move immediately, leaving it not all that well planned, and Dumbledore knew accurately that he'd feel like he needed to 'fulfill his destiny' and 'destroy his nemesis' alone."

Ron pulled a well-worn rook from his pocket, setting on the dashboard, then tipping it over with a flick of his thumb, and Neville let out a low, awed whistle. "Canny bastard."

"Everyone had agreed to it, and he'd even thought of that if something went wrong, there was best odds of Riddle going down anyway because both families would be protecting their kids." Ron shook his head wonderingly, picking up the chess piece and running a thumb over the smooth base. "Still, a little too canny for his own good. He - " He stopped abruptly, his attention caught by something outside so keenly that he didn't even notice swinging his feet back into the dark well. "Oh, hello, hello there."

Neville saw it too, and he nodded, his hand poised on the door handle. "Looks like Ricky's got a friend." The new arrival was tall, bundled in a shabby coat of once-military lines, his hands moving in too much animation, shifting constantly from one foot to the other as the men conversed.

"I hate to interrupt their date, but..." Ron's eyes were gleaming, his smile baring teeth.

"Do you want to open or cover?" Neville tapped the small amulet in his ear, opening the line to the matching one hidden behind Ricky's and pitching his voice low so that it wouldn't carry.

"Let me open," Ron cracked his knuckles, drawing his wand and running the smooth willow briskly through his fist. "I've got some aggression I need to deal with."

"Just don't get carried away," Neville warned firmly. Something that flashed blue had been withdrawn from the pocket of the coat across the street, and he tapped the amulet again. "Stall him, Ricky."

There was no answer, nor should there have been one directly, but he could hear the conversation clearly now, the other man's rough yet almost wheedling Manc slur as clear as if he was sitting in the back seat. "...the best I can give you."

It had been a long time, but not too long. They still moved smoothly, the training still answering true. No more conversation now. Everything was hand gestures, eye contact. Out of the car, the chill rain soaking his hair instantly, running down the back of the heavy wool robes that were quickly getting heavier, but against the adrenaline it was bracing, honing his attention. Staying to the shadows, cursing as a hundred times before whomever had the bright idea of the vivid green, praying that Ricky would keep their target's attention until they were close enough for this not to become a magical firefight too visible from the tower blocks surrounding them.

Ricky's voice, beautifully played, feeding the cravings Neville knew had to be sharp as knives into the hungry, needful tone. "But mate, I'll be getting a job soon, I know it. I've had a couple interviews, I've got some leads that are rock solid. I promise I'll have the money, and you know I've been good for years now."

Wait for the moment the shifting little dance brought the target's back to the road. Sprint across, almost slipping on the wet tarmac, footsteps muffled by the rain. Slamming a little too hard against the concrete wall of the carpark, momentum just that much out of control. The target's voice again, the confidence of someone who holds a card so high that compromise is out of the question. "Then when they come through, we can talk."

Making his way along the length of the wall to the opening. Couldn't see the target any more, but he was right around the corner, and there was none of the usual fear that a situation like this might turn into a hostage standoff if they botched it. Ricky might be weakened, but he was still very much DA and would be an unquestionably unpleasant surprise for anyone who thought they could get the drop on him. His eyes found Ron's across the gap. "Right now, though -"

Fingers ticked off. One. Two. Three. "Auror Department! On the ground, hands on your head!"

Perfect. It was fucking perfect. Ricky jumped back, the look of guilty horror on the target's face outlined for only an instant before he hit the pavement so hard that it seemed for a moment he'd been shot, hands clamped to the back of his head. Wand still leveled in one hand, Neville grabbed the target's wrists with the other before he could change his mind. Not even a glance needed, and Ron had locked the cuffs in place, freeing him to frisk quickly for weapons, taking the wand from the back trouser pocket but leaving the various bottles and flasks of evidence where they were.

They hadn't made such a picture-perfect takedown since Auror training nine years back, but the smile abruptly dissolved off of Ron's face into an expression of frustrated fury. "Shit, shit, shit!"

Neville's hands tightened on the hilt of his wand, a thousand possibilities from an unseen weapon to having recognized the target as someone they'd rather not have it be spinning through his head. "What's wrong?"

"I can't remember the fucking Caution!"

Oh was that -! Neville sighed in exasperation, digging in his pocket for the little card Ron was supposed to be carrying as well and, as the officer who had actually put the cuffs on, it was his duty to administer to their muttering target. "I've got it written down. Here."

He tossed it over, and Ron caught it easily, tilting it to the light as he launched into the lengthy recitation. "It is my duty that you be made aware of your standing under the Provision of Magical Rights and Liberties. You have been apprehended by officers of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement while engaging in activities reasonably believed to be criminal in nature, and there is intent to hold you in violation of the law. Your wand has been – oh yeah."

He looked up curiously at Neville, who displayed the target's wand, allowing Ron to continue with a dramatic clearing of the throat. "- confiscated and may not be returned to you unless you are exonerated of charges by the Wizengamot or equivalent legal due process. Officers of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement may use physical or magical force against you, including such as may cause permanent harm, injury, illness, incapacitation, or death if and only to the degree as is necessary to retain you in custody and to safeguard their own welfare as well as that of others. Any statement or incantation you may say or perform, including via non-verbal means may be used as evidence in a criminal proceeding..."

Neville took the time to make a more thorough search of the target's pockets. Two flasks like the one he'd found in Ricky's apartment, two smaller vials, a small amount of pocket change, a half-crushed packet of B&H, a lighter, a pocketknife, and a wallet that identified him as Rodger Huntsman as well as giving an address only a few streets away that was potentially quite useful. "...You are considered to be innocent until such time as guilt is reasonably proven, however your apprehension in situ is considered temporary grounds upon which you have waived your right to liberty at this time. You have the right to refuse to answer questions, however any false or misleading answers given will result in additional criminal charges. If you believe yourself to be operating under a curse, hex, jinx, or otherwise engaging in your current activities under magical coercion, you may indicate as such at any time. Additional rights and exclusions under wizarding law will be explained to you fully and completely as relevant. Do you understand these rights and exclusions?"

Huntsman nodded miserably. "Yes."

"Good." Neville reached down and took hold of the cuffs, pulling Huntsman to his feet. He caught sight of Ricky, and his face changed abruptly from self-pitying despair to violent, open rage.

"You fucking smug little cunt," Huntsman screamed, lunging forward uselessly against the far stronger man holding his wrists, "you fucking set this up!"

Ricky gave a little bow, his smile as sweet as candy floss. "Never been more of a pleasure doing business with you."

"I'm gonna -"

The threat was cut off as Neville spun him around, tapping his wand against the crooked nose. "Dig yourself in a lot deeper if you finish that sentence. I'd recommend against it. You're already in a lot of trouble."

Slowly, the rage dissolved into an expression of shocked, horrified recognition, and Ron laughed, stepping forward to lay a hand on the shoulder of the ragged coat. "Oh, look at that. Clearly, by the pants-shitting expression on your face, you've managed to recognize both the most famous ginger in the wizarding world and the very distinctive slashes on my mate's cheeks here. So you know who we are, you've got a pretty good idea what we can get away with, and now would be an excellent time to start cooperating, wouldn't it?"

Huntsman swallowed hard, his eyes darting from one officer to the other and back again. "What do you want from me?"

Neville smiled. "The gentleman responsible for that nice blue glass flask you were about to sell our friend Mr. King."

"I don't know him!" Huntsman cried desperately. "I just get them from suppliers! I'll tell you -"

He didn't get a chance to finish, his eyes flying wide and his mouth dropping into a pained, gagging wheeze of air as he doubled over the fist that had just been introduced forcefully to his midsection. Neville yanked the target away, glaring at his partner. "Ron!"

There was no trace of regret as Ron shook out his hand, shrugging innocently. "Incentive."

"You're not allowed to give that kind of incentive when they're cooperating," Neville retorted.

"I don't feel very cooperated with, and I'm in a bad mood." Ron shrugged again, circling around to crouch in front of Huntsman so that his face could be seen clearly from the doubled-over posture. "So. Please cooperate clearly enough that a thick bastard like me can see it, or I might have to give you another incentive."

"Ron..." Neville cautioned, but Huntsman was already talking again, forcing the words past the gulps and gasps.

"I can give you my suppliers, but that's the fucking best I can do, I swear!" White was visible all the way around the dark circles of his eyes, sweat beginning to bead on his forehead, and Ron straightened, nodding in satisfaction.

"It's a start. Call it a good faith gesture. Here." He pulled a notepad and pencil stub from his pockets and passed them to the bound hands. "You're going to have to write cuffed. I'll forgive the handwriting since it's from behind your back. If you're having problems, you can even dictate."

"'Sokay." Huntsman's lips split into a tight, frightened grimace of an accomodating smile. "I don't mind."

Neville sighed, taking a step back to allow the necessary contortions of the awkward writing position. "I'm sure you don't."

They watched, silently as Huntsman maneuvered himself back to the ground, his brow creased in concentration and his tongue protruding from between his clenched lips as he struggled to write. Ricky seemed curious at first, then his attention turned to Neville, and he gestured first towards the oddly writhing captive, then Ron. "Good cop, bad cop. Isn't that a little..."

"Yeah," Neville agreed, "but it usually works, and besides, Ricky, tonight he means it."

The blue eyes narrowed, taking a better look at the tight set of the shoulders beneath the sodden green wool, the arms crossed over the chest, the glowing tip of the wand clenched in one white-knuckled hand, the please-give-me-an-excuse inscribed over every inch of his posture. "Oh."

Neville nodded his head across the street, making no effort to hide the pride in his voice at Ricky's part in the night's success. "There's also a large pink box in the back of the car we were sitting in, when we're done with this."

Ricky stiffened, hope infused with uncertainty darting his glance only once to the abandoned Puegeot and back again. "But what if he -"

"You kept your end of the bargain," Neville interrupted firmly. "The rest of it's up to us. RON!"

A glance at the notepad had turned into an explosion, and Huntsman was on his side curled into a fetal ball, shrieking shrilly in pain as he thrashed in a futile attempt to protect himself from the blows raining ferociously down on him. Ron looked like he'd lost his mind, scarlet with rage as he slammed the punches down again and again without any sign of pattern or thought. "You son of a banshee whore, we're not fucking about here! What kind of a joke are you trying to pull?"

"I'm not, I'm not," Huntsman howled, "I fucking swear I'm not!"

Neville surged forward, grabbing Ron by both shoulders and yanking him off. This was no mere outlet of frustration or interrogation tactic. He was completely off his wand, and it was all he could do to hold him back, finally forced to twist one arm up behind Ron's back closer to the point of breaking it than he ever would have imagined would have been necessary. "Ron, what the -"

"Take a look at his little list, Neville!" It was a growl, a roar, but beneath it was a kind of disbelieving, genuine _hurt _that sent shivers up his spine. "Look at it!"

Neville hesitated, unwilling to let him go, but thank Merlin for Ricky. He was right there, his wand out and the tip of it against Ron's throat, and the struggles had stopped. Nodding his thanks, Neville slowly, carefully released Ron's arm, ready to grab it again if he tried to attack, but he seemed to have gotten himself under something at least enough resembling control that it was enough to let Ricky hold him as he approached the sobbing, moaning bundle snorting blood from his nose to spray across the damp concrete.

The notepad had been stepped on, the top page torn half away, and the handwriting was in fact worse than atrocious, but it was still there enough, still clear enough to see without question what had set him off. It wasn't the first entry in the list of suppliers, familiar though it was. That Mundungus Fletcher would show up on such an accounting was no surprise to anyone, nor would it be his first trip through the courts on exactly such charges. But the second...

Neville's eyes flicked from the paper to Ricky, still holding Ron at wandpoint. So young to be so old, already enduring and having endured so much, so close to trusting, even hoping again. He couldn't. He'd say it was Dung, make an excuse about him having been Order with the Weasley family, but the other name could wait, would have to wait. He took a deep breath, and for the first time truly felt the cold of the night and the weight of his soaked uniform as he charmed the scrap against the damp and pushed it and the damning scrawl of _Luna Lovegood_ deep into his pocket.

OOO

"I wasn't expecting you to actually be in the office. You need to be careful; even the Famous Harry Potter can't exist on coffee alone." Harry looked up at the sound of Neville's voice, raising the cup in his hand in a darkly sardonic toast as he swallowed the mouthful he'd already taken and gestured across the assorted piles.

"I've got a letter to Father Christmas to finish. Apparently, if one of the victims is a former Minister of Magic who could have fought his way back from a Manticore's tonsils, they suddenly get so scared they start shitting Galleons." " He picked up the form he'd been working on, holding in by the very tips of his fingers as if it were contaminated and set it aside, then folded his arms and leaned back in his chair, kicking his heels up onto the edge of the desk. "How about you two? How'd the stakeout go?"

"Got the bastard." Ron grinned, tossing the mug shots and intake report onto the top of the pile triumphantly. "He's in lockup. The Enforcers are taking a very full statement."

"Excellent work!" From the look on Harry's face, Neville expected that it was hours of work more than years of maturity that prevented him from jumping up and hugging his friend as if they'd just won the House Cup. As it was, he managed a gesture that was an odd, weary little cross between a thumbs-up and a salute. "Nice to hear some good news for once."

"I wish I could give you more," Neville sighed reluctantly, "But I'm here to ask for a warrant."

The smile on Harry's face froze, crinkling between his eyes before it came apart entirely into wary confusion. "You should go to a judge for that."

Without really looking, he could feel Ron's tension next to him in the sudden building of energy that raised the hairs on his arm, but he pushed on, refusing to let it go, regardless of the...discussion that had taken place between the Lancashire car park and Harry's office. "Technically, as head of Department, you hold the commission of Justice of the Peace for exactly this purpose."

Harry nodded slowly, the tension not missed as his eyes flicked from one man to the other. "But that's supposed to be for emergencies. We still usually -"

"Harry, it's Luna." Neville's interruption was gentle, barely loud enough to be heard, painted over with a dozen colours of regret, but it was like the quiet pop of a match head that lit a fuse.

Ron wheeled on him, the crimson already rising in his cheeks as his hands fisted at his sides, shoulders so taut that they quivered halfway to his ears. "The goddamn cunt was lying through his fucking teeth. He fucking knew who we were, he just -"

"_Maybe he did,_ Ron," Neville argued, refusing to back down as he felt the lines of tension ricochet through his own body. His palms itched, the veins of his wandhand forearm tingling, and he could suddenly sense the little _Epipremnum aureum_ in the pot on Harry's bookshelf. He took a deep breath, pushing the feeling away. It wasn't about Ron, any more than Ron's anger was about him, and that needed to matter. "That's still no excuse!"

Whether Harry had come over or around the desk, he hadn't noticed. The point was that Harry was very much on their side of it now, both hands upraised an inch away from actually physically acting to separate them. "Excuse for what?"

Deliberately, Neville turned away from the confrontation, taking a step back even as he faced Harry, his voice calm to the point of rote. "Harry, you need to talk to your best mate about when, why, and where we punch suspects."

"Note he doesn't say how," Ron interjected. "How I've still got down."

It had been said with a smirk, the clear expectation that Harry would take his side, but it lasted no longer than it took the green eyes to widen in a kind of almost panicky disappointment. "Oh, God, Ron...how bad?"

"I didn't put him in hospital or anything." Ron's voice balanced on the uncertain edge between apologetic and defensive. "I just gave him a little incentive not to arse us about."

Neville cleared his throat, nodding towards the bruised man in the photographs on the desk. "You punched him a good two dozen times when he was screaming on the ground in a ball."

"Details?"

"Right." Harry sighed heavily, returning to his desk and picking up the photograph to examine the extent of the damage for himself. "Ron, we're going to have a talk."

"Don't take that tone with me, Harry!" Ron snapped, the flush back to his cheeks hotter than ever. "We've been -"

"You don't have to remind me what we've been after seventeen years and me marrying your sister, you twat!" The vehemence of Harry's retort shocked Neville and made him feel a little uncomfortable at being there, but unlike when they were boys, there wasn't an option for closing the bed curtains and pretending one couldn't hear them fight. "But if I didn't have to remind you, you wouldn't be making my life harder right now by getting your jollies off on a target's head!"

So long ago, Dean had categorized Ron and Harry's fights into two forms: Nevermind-It's-Already-Over and Oh-God-They'll-Be-At-This-For-Months. Apparently, the distinction still held true, and Neville was relieved to see that it was the former as Ron's face softened and he crossed the cramped office to lay an appeasing hand on the other man's shoulder. "Harry, I'm sorry. I didn't -"

"No. I just..." Harry squeezed the hand in return, and the look that passed between them was the unspoken volumes of nearly twenty years, uncountable close calls, and the morning's fresh grief rolled tightly into a single moment of complete understanding.

"Yeah." Ron smiled softly. "Give Neville his warrant and I'll get us a drink, how abouts?"

Harry's reply held all the regret of a friend maintaining the formality of a commanding officer that Neville knew too well. "We still need to talk."

"Sure thing," Ron agreed pragmatically, already headed for the door. "The 30 year scotch Justin doesn't have or the tequila Demelza doesn't have?"

"Tequila," Harry answered firmly after a moment's consideration. "I don't want to sip, and I don't want to want another."

There was a long moment of uncomfortable silence after Ron left, Harry musing over the photos and the attached brief, fingering the note in its plastic evidence pouch without looking up. "Do you really think Luna's involved in this?"

"I don't know," Neville admitted, "and I want to find out with as few other people getting mixed up in it as possible."

Another long pause, then at last Harry set the pile down with a sigh, pinching at his scar in the reflexive gesture of a headache even though Ginny had said he hadn't gotten those headaches since Riddle died. "I can't let you go alone. Who do you want?"

"Who's open?"

Harry started to answer, then frowned, pulling a small notebook from the pocket of his trousers and paging through the hastily scribbled pages before answering thoughtfully. "I could give you Sally-Anne, Brian, or Tony. I'd have to pull him away from the Unspeakables, but that was part of the deal that we had him first."

At nearly nine at night, he had not expected a choice, and Neville's eyes widened. "Is anyone sleeping any more?"

"Here and there." There was no amusement in Harry's smile. "At this point, no one hasn't lost someone personal. We're going to find them, Neville; that's a promise."

"I know." It wasn't an empty promise, nor an empty agreement, and they both knew it, no matter how damnably obtuse it all seemed at the moment. "There's a part of me actually hoping that running this down might lead to something on the Nevermore by accident."

"Worse things could happen." A dark little chuckle didn't quite rumble into full speech, and Harry put the notebook away, searching his desk for a form. Neville waited while he filled it out, signing it with the flourish of ten thousand resented autographs before he handed it over. "Your warrant."

He didn't look at it, as if not seeing her name inked coldly onto the line marked suspect could change anything. "Thanks. I guess I'll take Tony for my partner; he's good at keeping his mouth shut, and he was in her House. She doesn't know the other two very well."

Harry nodded, locating another handful of blank forms among the piles that Neville was beginning to realized actually had a pattern to their chaos. "Fill out your arrest report on this suspect, and I'll have him down within the hour."

"Yes, sir." Neville said it without thinking, then winced, wondering if it would be taken in offence, but there was no reaction at all.

Instead, Harry seemed lost in thought, spinning a broken-nibbed quill slowly between his fingers. "Nev? If I wasn't his best friend, would there be anything else you'd want to tell me about Ron tonight?"

There was no hesitation in the answer, and he was grateful to give it. "That he's a far sight more brilliant than people give him credit for behind the floppy ginger grin, and that you should probably cut some slack for an officer who lost his father this morning."

He did not know what to make of the look on Harry's face at first until he realized that it was mostly hope; a rare enough emotion even when not mixed with the gratitude and fondness that seasoned it now. "Really?"

"Really. Ask him about chess."

Harry was already back to work, back to his requisitions and assignments and evidence and depositions and coffee, but there was something easier now in the settling of his body in the chair, a warmth that made Neville ache for Seamus and Hannah and Ernie and every time he had ever had that connection to someone that the other two men held so dearly despite its occasional volatility. "Thanks, Nev. I will."

OOO

It wasn't raining in Devon, for which Neville was deeply grateful. The night was warm, just overcast enough to blur the light of the waxing three-quarter moon into a tableau that looked as if it belonged on the cover of one of the children's books of fairy tales. The house giggled at the traditions of architecture from behind coyly irised shutters, spaces for sitting and reading and thinking tucked into every nook of the lush gardens in an invitation more tempting than any siren. He gave in, telling himself it was only a momentary indulgence, a chance to confer with his partner as he sat on the bench that had been formed from a single piece of carefully live-moulded cypress root.

Tony joined him, shining the light from his wand at his feet to pick his way cautiously across the mingling of moss and mulch and gravel spotted with tender little living things which would not take kindly to being stepped upon. He said nothing, there were no questions on his face, but wasn't that what Neville had wanted when he had chosen someone who knew her? And wasn't it really for himself that he took a deep breath, trying to sound confident and authoritative and not like something too deep was aching at the thought of having to turn traitor on another of his precious few surviving officers? "We aren't going in there wands out, breaking the door down like she's some kind of murderer. This is Luna, and it's just a tip; we don't even know if it's true."

The answering smile was sombre and barely qualified as such, holding no amusement at the unnecessary clarification. "Of course, Commander. She might be a bit..." He hesitated, his hand circling vocabulary until it found a functional word. "..._off_, but I can't see her trying to hurt either one of us."

A part of him, Neville now realized, had been hoping that Tony would argue. Not that there was any actual grounds to expect it, "Right."

"So."

"Yeah."

They were still sitting there. Tony fidgeted with the hilt of his wand. "Are we going in?"

Neville pinched a leaf of the tall, spindly succulent nearby, rubbing the phosphorescent sap so that it picked out the pattern of his fingerprints. He nodded. He did not get up. "I just..."

"Are you doing okay, Sir?" The gesture was hesitant, a little awkward as Tony reached out to put a hand on his shoulder, but the sincerity was unmistakable. "I mean, with everything that's happened, I'm a little amazed that you're still on duty."

It was not a rejection, and they both understood that, but Neville shrugged the hand away nonetheless, shaking his head with a rueful practicality. "If that year taught me anything, Tony, it's that we do what we have to do."

Words wandered off again, leaving only the quiet urban thrum of the miniature civilization of little animals, insects, and moving, growing plant life that was any healthy garden. Neville let his hand rest lax at his side so that the fingertips could brush the edge of the roses behind him. The vine nudged him like a curious puppy, one new leaf unfurling to explore the scar in his palm, but he barely noticed. His attention had been caught by the flicker of silver at the neck of Tony's robes, but despite the years of their friendship, he was still uncertain where the boundaries lay, and it was almost a minute's contemplation before he cleared his throat nervously. "Can I ask you something personal?"

At first, Neville thought he'd made a serious mistake as Tony's back stiffened, his face and eyes freezing in guarded assessment, but they relaxed soon enough, even if not all the way, and when he finally, slowly nodded, it was in reserve rather than offence. "As long as it's not about someone else's secrets or my second job, sure."

Now that he'd opened the topic, it was too late to take it back, but Neville was beginning to regret having said anything. Politics, religion, and sex. Of the trifecta of things that his Gran had raised him were not for general conversation, he was about to make a career of the first and had discovered since he and his friends began having children that the last wasn't nearly the big deal he'd once thought it to be. Then again, Gran had been very against tickling and quite in favour of suicidal revolutions, so perhaps his upbringing had some eccentricities.

Might as well. And if he did make an arse of himself, he was more than willing to apologize, so hopefully that would mean something. Still, he wasn't quite able to make eye contact, looking down at the rose instead as he teased it with his fingers. "I've watched you make a lot of judgement calls about letter of the law vs intent since you decided that, well, I guess you were always Jewish, but..."

He trailed off, but Tony understood well enough to finish his sentence. "Since I lost my legs and wound up on much more personal terms with Hashem?"

"I'm sorry, I don't mean to be rude."

"You're not." There was, actually, no hint of offence in his tone, and it seemed as if the previous tension had entirely dissipated. "If I were ashamed of it, I wouldn't wear a Magen David at work. Is this about the dumplings?"

Neville looked up quickly, shaking his head. "No! Well...kind of." He sighed, pushing the rose away reluctantly to give his whole attention to the conversation. "I told the solicitor today that I don't want a service for my parents. I don't want to put our whole hot list in one place as a shooting gallery with the Nevermore still out there, and I don't want to exclude people who have every right and reason to be there, but it still feels..."

He couldn't finish, but again, he didn't need to. "You can have a service later, you know."

"That's what I've been telling myself," he shrugged, feeling suddenly silly for having bothered the other man with his personal problems, but unable somehow to stop. "It just keeps coming up again and again and again lately. Even now, even here with Luna."

"What's right, what's Right, and what's practical."

"Exactly, and I thought you've been..." It didn't make sense. He wasn't a timid person, not really, not any more. Give him a battlefield with impossible odds, three small children with simultaneous Dragon Pox, an unruly class of hormonal teenagers who cared about anything but pruning techniques, or some sickly plant that no one could even identify, and he was fine. Merlin, why was this so hard?

Now it was Tony who looked away, reaching down to cross one ankle across the other knee and drumming his fingers in a thoughtfully hollow tattoo on the plastic through the trousers. "The Healers said it was probably a hallucination brought on by shock and blood loss, you know. On some levels, they might be right, but I've had to decide for myself, and I believe I heard the Metatron; that I would be spared but that in return I was expected to atone for putting myself before another and that there would still be a price to pay. The price has been obvious, and truthfully, when the Minister came to a skinny amputee kid with social anxiety and offered a place in the Aurors, I thought that was pretty clear too. Sometimes, you just need to listen."

Neville nodded, touched by the intimacy of the confession even as he struggled to phrase why it didn't answer his dilemma. "Not to be rude, but I don't believe in your God -"

Tony laughed, tapping the silver medallion that hung from its chain around his neck. "Not to offend _you_, Commander, but you're not exactly a child of Abraham."

"Well, yeah." Neville could feel himself blush at the obvious correction, but something in the little talisman recalled the golden cross Sir Kaye had always worn, the long conversations about the nature of faith and the power he had himself found there despite his expectations that it was all myth and superstition. "I've gotten some pretty strong...instincts, I guess I'd call them. Where you know, even when you don't want to, what the right thing is. But those don't tend to offer you answers on the small things, even when they're not all that small."

"What day of the week is it?"

The question took him off guard, and he frowned, having to think a moment before he could answer certainly against the hectic blur of chaos that had taken over his life in the past two weeks. "Friday."

"After sunset," Tony agreed. "That makes it the Shabbat, and I'm here, at work, clean-shaven, with short hair, wearing a uniform made of cotton-wool blend, my wife is not just a Gentile, but Buddhist, and we're teaching our baby girls that Islam is a perfectly beautiful part of their heritage. Because we can only do our best, and we'll mess up sometimes, but if we try honestly..." He stopped, shaking his head with a self-deprecating shrug. "I sound like a Gryffindor now."

"You're talking to a Gryffindor."

Another pause, the uncertainty if it was awkward or not making it so, and Tony closed his eyes, clasping his fist over the six-pointed charm as he seemed to turn inward to himself. "_Barukh atah Adonai Eloheinu melekh ha'olam, ha'gomeyl lahayavim tovot, sheg'malani kol tov."_

He had never heard the language before – Neville assumed it to be Hebrew or something like it – and it was at once rougher and more melodious than he had expected, reminding him a little of the rare times when Seamus still turned to Gaelic. "What does that mean?"

Tony seemed a little embarrassed at the recitation, as if he had expected Neville to laugh or criticize him for it, and he twisted the hem of his trousers between his fingers. "Letter of the law? It's part of a blessing when someone survives danger. My grandfather laid it properly when they said I'd live after the battle."

"Spirit of the law?"

"I say it every day." The admission had come in a whisper, and he was both surprised and not quite to see that there was a fierce brightness of not quite tears in Tony's eyes when he looked up. "We're the lucky ones, Neville. Now more than ever. We might not stay so lucky, but that's in God's hands, or fate, or whatever you want to call it. But we can't control that, and we can't control what other people do. If Luna's been breaking the law, she knows what risks she was taking. But letter of the law says we go in there and make a takedown."

Somehow, the purpose of their visit, though still not a welcome return, did not seem quite as heavy as it had when they had first Apparated to the property. "Spirit of the law says we talk to our friend and ask her to come in with us. No cuffs. No hands on the head."

"And you have a service for your parents when it's safe, and whatever Draco tells you, you keep in mind that all the games and policies and bills in the Wizengamot are attached to people's lives."

"And maybe when it's time to decide if we unify or separate, I'll know." The rose had found his hand again, and he indulged it, shooing the aphids away from an infested bud, healing the bites with a passing caress of his thumb. He would give anything for all of life to be so simple, but it wasn't, it never would be, and yet... "Maybe we all will."

Inside the house, something shattered. Both officers snapped instantly to alert, on their feet and wands out before the sound had faded into the night, but it was followed almost at once by a playful curse and a woman's laughter, and slowly, the weapons came down again. They exchanged a long look, then Neville holstered his wand again. "Tony?"

"Sir?" Neither had sat down again, and they both knew why. As much as the garden offered a persuasive argument for a night of conversation or contemplation or just peaceful, easy rest, they were not there to relax.

Neville extended a hand, unsure if the gesture was technically needed or even appropriate, but needing to make it anyway. "Thanks for coming tonight."

Tony accepted the handshake, though he seemed a little uncomfortable with the compliment implied in the thanks. "It was the right thing to do."

"Let's go, then." The cypress bench, the roses, the thousand other beautiful things were so intoxicatingly welcoming that he forced a tight, curt nod and strode towards the path that led to the front door that led to the house that led to things he'd never wanted to do with any friend ever, much less another and again. "Get this over with."

It would have been easier if she had been annoyed. Better if she had refused to answer the door. Even welcome if she had told them to go away; she was tired, she'd spent half her week tending an addict, it was half ten at night, she was going to bed or meditating or just didn't bloody want visitors. Of course, that would have been easier, and easier, Neville was beginning to believe, was simply not allowed.

Luna answered at the second knock, her face lighting up despite the dark circles and pale cheeks that insisted she was human after all, and she launched herself at both of them in turn with giddy, unabashed hugs that took her fully off her feet in the simple confidence that of course they would catch and hold. "Neville! Tony! What a pleasant surprise!"

Parenthood had schooled Tony well in the art of absorbing happy impact, and he chuckled despite his errand as he set her down, smoothing back a lock of hair that had come free of the vibrantly crocheted kerchief tied over her head. "Good evening, Luna. It's been too long."

"It has!" She nodded, already towing them both down the hallway, navigating the boxes and furniture and half-finished projects and oh-my-he-really-didn't-want-to-ask with effortless expertise. "You need to bring Li and the girls over more often. I'm working on a mural in the cellar, and children are always the best artists; they're so uninhibited. I'm sorry you didn't get here earlier, we had a wonderful dinner, but I'm making jam, if you're willing to help prep Knoutberries."

"Of course," Neville scrambled to find the remains of the authority she had so blithely usurped, even though he knew full well he was about to start making jam. "But I'm afraid there's a more serious reason we're here, if you wouldn't mind us talking in private."

"Oh, that won't be a problem." They had alit in the kitchen, and she waved them towards the table that was already heaped with bowls and bags and baskets of soft golden berries. Luna left them to find something to sit on that hadn't been otherwise claimed, shamelessly tucking the hem of her skirts into her waistband and crawling on her hands and knees into the cupboard below the sink. "Rolf's gotten hold of a wonderful diary from a gentleman who attempted Everest in the twenties with a gorgeous Yeti sighting, but there's some water damage that's requiring a full restoration, which means he's going to be at his chemical baths and magnifying lenses for a while. I think I could go in there skyclad and he'd not notice unless I were covered in white fur."

She emerged out another door over by the entrance to the pantry, now holding a pair of ceramic bowls painted in a red, white, and black pattern that looked sort of tribal. "How is the family, Tony?"

Tony had found a thing like a barstool – though the dignified, utilitarian oak constructions at the Leaky might take offence to being lumped in the same category as this brilliantly painted mostly teal and gold thing with the fringe that hung down nearly a foot – and he accepted the bowl with a bemused smile. "Li had a minor infection earlier this week, but it seems to be clearing up. Asa and Fi are doing wonderfully. Fi has discovered a company that makes dark-skinned fairies and princess dolls, so I'm pulling some overtime."

Neville received his bowl now, and she was already back to the cupboards, flicking things out with her wand and somehow knowing clear spaces to send them without seeming to look. "I'll send you home with a poultice for Li, then. Goldenseal, honey, and silver, I think. Maybe some tea tree oil. I wonder if I have any of that left? I need to stock back up; I've been making so many things lately."

He needed to take control of the situation. Like it or not. They were here for a reason, and at least she'd given him something like enough to a segue that he would be a fool not to take it. "That's...what we want to talk to you about."

"Has your back been giving you trouble again, Neville?" She twisted to face him with a look of sympathy so meltingly genuine it was like a roundhouse kick to the conscience. "You really should have listened to me when I told you to start yoga years ago. They've got to be constricting by now, but some shea butter -"

"Luna, have you been making potions for the black market?"

Oh, bless Tony for his bluntness. Bless him with his God, all Luna's Gods and Goddesses, Kaye's God, any stray Gods who happened to be wandering around, and that one regular bloke at the Leaky who had been hexed in the first war and thought he was the God of Peanuts. It had been said, and Neville hadn't been the one to have to say it.

She was frozen in place, utterly baffled, a dozen little packets and bottles and vials of herbs and powders hovering in the air around her like half-finished thoughts. "What do you mean?"

"Not just for your friends," Tony pushed, his tone and posture pure professionalism as his eyes betrayed every bit of sorely felt regret. "For someone who re-sells them...illegal potions, specifically, or ones with a high street value. Particularly have you been making them for anyone who uses blue glass flasks?"

The objects slowly sank to the floor. It would have been false to say that she looked shocked, guilty, or even particularly upset, but...annoyed, maybe? As if they had pointed out that Marie was really a very ordinary middle name rather than accused her of being a key facet of a major potions ring. "Oh dear. I thought this might come up."

"Is that a yes, Luna?" He should have had his notepad out, or at least Tony should have. One of them, anyway. If there was going to be a confession, they needed to record it in some way, but he couldn't, and he knew Tony felt the same. Taking a confession was one step too far towards treating her like a common criminal, at least right now, and certainly here. That could be saved for later in the officious sterility of a Ministry office rather than the hospitable insanity of her kitchen.

Yet Luna was already on her feet again, spine straight, shoulders back, no sign of shame as she handed Neville a basked of berries from the table. "Sit down, sort these. They're ripe when they're golden all over; just get rid of any that have started to rot or are still green." He had no choice but to take them if he didn't want to be unreasonably confrontational, and she knew it, already leaving him to his task as she crossed to the stove. "I'll start water for tea...or tisane, really. I don't approve of tea. Do you know the vast majority of tea plantations use child labour?"

Tony came to his rescue again, his voice gently persuasive but firm. "Luna..."

"What Ricky was taking was horrible. Filthy, adulterated opium extract with the Goddess only knows what added to it. I don't do that." She slammed the kettle down so hard that a bit of water splashed through the whistle on the spout, her voice harsher than he had heard it in years to the point that she almost didn't sound like herself at all. "I understand why he was taking it, but that doesn't mean I'm going to condone or contribute to that kind of mess; or for that matter start cooking meth. I've had my house blow up once."

Neville took a deep breath, forcing himself to push the point. "But you are making things."

"No, I'm not."

The two men exchanged a startled look, suddenly wondering if the tip had been bogus after all. "I thought -" Tony began, but she cut him off.

"I'm preparing what mother nature already creates."

The urge to roll his eyes at the equivocation was strong, but Neville managed to keep his response even. "What sort of creations are we talking about?"

Luna took a packet with some kind of Asian writing from the cupboard, ripping the top off with unnecessary violence. "Things that people have been using for thousands of years perfectly well, thank you, before the government decided to start outlawing it because a few small-minded people got their robes in a twist, or they realized they couldn't make enough money off of it."

Tony raised an eyebrow, glancing out the kitchen window to the framework of the hothouse just visible in the yard beyond. "Marijuana?"

"Cannabis," she corrected hotly, "and yes, some of that. It's what I recommended to Ricky before he got messed up in the other business. It's an incredibly potent and remarkably safe analgesic -"

Neville stopped her with an upraised hand, though the gesture lost a bit of force in the handful of berries it contained. "I have a MAGI in Herbology, I know the characteristics of cannabis. I also know it's illegal. Is that all you've been doing?"

"A lot of naturalistic remedies and potions, but those aren't illegal."

This time, he almost didn't win the struggle not to roll his eyes. "Have you been making and distributing anything else that could be considered illegal, whether you agree with that designation or not?"

"A few religious items."

Tony's own frustration was taken out on a rotten berry, smashed to rancid paste in the discard pile. "Religious -"

"Peyote, mescaline, mushrooms, that sort of thing." Making the tea – or tisane, if that's what it was – seemed to be calming her, or maybe she was just getting back in control of her emotions as she measured the contents of the packet into mugs. "But those are exclusively for the purpose of religious rituals with studied practitioners of ancient traditions that are being unfairly discriminated against in the law. He's promised me."

The tantalizing hint at their real target reminded Neville of their larger goal in this whole unpleasant business, and he leaned forward, his own basket of berries forgotten. "Who's promised you?"

"The person who's buying them from me." She had taken out a small pot of honey or something like it and was drizzling it thoughtfully atop whatever had come from the packet. "Well, I'm not exactly selling. I ask to be reimbursed for my costs, but I'm not making money at this."

Tony snorted derisively. "I bet he loves that."

Neville shot him a look of disapproval, shaking his head before he turned his attention back to the person he still refused to think of as a target or suspect. "Luna, you're being lied to."

"I'm not going to get into this again, Neville." Luna set the mug in front of him with finality, wagging a finger at him sternly. "I thought that we agreed a long time ago that you and I have very different life philosophies, and -"

"No, he means that the person who is buying these from you is not telling the truth," Tony insisted , accepting his own drink with a cautious sniff. "Luna, Neville's new to it, but I've been working this case off and on for months. One of the most baffling things for us has been the inconsistency of product. How one flask can have a beautiful, perfect headache remedy made out of organic, natural ingredients that show so much skill and caring, and then the next is cauldron polish cut with cheap cocaine and horse tranquillizer. Your stuff is being sold as straight up street potions."

Her face was unreadable as she stared into her mug, her voice betraying no more emotion despite holding none of its customary dreamy distance. "Are you sure it's the same person?"

"On the distribution level, there are several," Tony admitted, "but they all come from the same place."

"How do you know the street dealers aren't the ones getting them from everywhere?"

"They're all in the same containers, sealed with the same wax. We've been calling him the Bristol Blue Bottle, and this case went to the Aurors when two thirteen year-old girls died from a 'love potion' that was about 20% amyl nitrate."

Luna bit her lip, tiny creases between the almost invisible brows the first sign that they might be getting through. The dreaminess was back, though, and he hoped that didn't mean that she was pulling back. "You know I don't think much of the law."

"Tony just said that this is about kids dy-"

"Let me finish, Neville. I don't think much of the laws." She took a long sip, staring into the mug as if she were back in Divination. When she looked up again, her smile was soft, a little maternal, and condescending in that way that he had never liked but had always been there when she started in on her father's theories. "They're silly, and you're going to learn that soon enough. They get made for the most ridiculous reasons, and they get ignored when powerful people please and otherwise get used to oppress people and ideas more often than they ever protect them. But not having a Nargle's fart's respect for government whims doesn't mean that I don't have a sense of right or wrong or a respect for genuine law; universal, natural law."

Neville nodded complacently, but he refused to either back down nor rise to her implied condemnation of the uniform he wore. "We arrested a street distributor tonight, Ron and I. He listed you as one of his suppliers. Whatever your opinions of the law, we can't just ignore that because we're friends. We're going to have to ask you to come with us to the Ministry."

Her smile widened fractionally. "I'm not mental."

"I've never thought you were," Neville insisted.

"Neither have I."

"Oh yes you have. Both of you." Now the smile had deepened fully, holding the mysterious sort of smugness that insisted she had a secret you could never comprehend. "You called me all the same things as everyone else, and I can still see it in your eyes sometimes. Just because I'm open to the omniverse doesn't mean I don't see what's going on around me."

"I've sometimes not understood you -" Neville argued, " – and all right, when we were kids, I thought you were downright bizarre at first – but that's not the same as thinking there's something wrong with you."

"There's nothing wrong with me." She took another deep swallow, nearly draining the mug, then gesturing to her visitors with it. "But I'm not being taken down to the Ministry."

"Luna, please," Tony was all but begging. "Don't make us -"

"I'm going," she interrupted, then finished the mug and sent it to the sink with a snap of her wand. "On my own. I do not like to be lied to or taken advantage of, but that's incidental compared to someone using the ancient and sacred secrets to enhance an empire of capitalist exploitative toxin-mongering."

The sudden apparent change of heart was completely unexpected, and the excitement sparked Tony's eyes and voice obviously. "Do you have something for us?"

"He used the name Cameron Lake with me," she replied crisply, "and he's about to discover the seven-fold canon." Before either of them could ask what exactly that was, she had untucked her skirts and swept out of the room in a swirl of batik and calico, leaving the two officers, their tea, their stunned silence, and their berries dismissed in her wake.

Tony was the first to recover speech, shaking his head as he let out a low, slow whistle. "Hell hath no fury..."

"I don't know if she believes in hell," Neville pointed out, still a little dazed himself."

"Doesn't need to." Tony lifted his mug as if in toast, nodding his head towards the door where she had made her dramatic exit. "She's scarier."

OOO

The wire snapped under the tip of the wand, and there was a moment's held breath before the cork gave way to the pressure beneath, popping free with a bang as loud as Apparation, foam exploding up and over to the eager glasses clustered below. It went everywhere, but it didn't matter, and everyone caught at least enough of it in the various cups, mugs, pint glasses, and other more makeshift drinking oddities to justify the toast that Harry hoisted exuberantly. "To Luna, to thirty pages of testimony, and to nailing the Bristol Blue Bottle within the week!"

Justin, true to form, had managed to snag the only true champagne flute in the lot, and he raised it over the cacophonous cheers with joking solemnity. "Here here!"

Harry bowed deeply, topping up the glasses before waving the nearly empty bottle towards the room in general. "And I will further take the opportunity as Head of Department to make it official and christen this the New RoR!"

Another cheer, and Demmy laughed, taking a deep draught. "May it never smell like the old one!"

"I'll drink to that," Zach agreed heartily. "My wife would kill me."

Neville took a sip of his own, and his eyes widened in surprise. He'd never been anything resembling a gourmet, but working the Leaky with Hannah had taught him a thing or two about spirits, and the delicately balanced flavour and pinpoint bubbles were not at all what he'd expected. "This is _really _good champagne, Harry. Did they give us that much more in the budget?"

The derisive laugh told him more than he'd needed to know about their new funding, and Harry gestured with his own commandeered coffee mug to the true benefactor. "Thank Justin for that, actually."

"Then thank you," Ron effused, bowing dramatically, "thank you, _thank you_."

"You're most welcome, I assure you." Justin motioned for Ron to stand again, tossing a wink at Harry that defused his aggrieved look. "I'd hate to think what Mr. Potter would have chosen on his own."

"It would have been champagne," Harry insisted.

"By definition of the label, perhaps."

"It's glorious." Tony's sigh bordered on inappropriate for mixed company as he swirled the pale golden liquid around the base of the teacup wistfully. "It makes me want strawberries and a long summer afternoon."

"That's funny," Sally-Anne grinned, "it makes me want to be naked."

"That's more than enough." Harry cleared his throat officiously, taking what Neville had come to realize was his customary seat on the edge of the coffee table and pulling a rolled sheaf of papers from the inner pocket of his robes to spread in front of him. "We need to get down to business. We've got everyone here for a reason."

Sally-Anne made a face, even as she obediently took up a position across the coffee table from him and picked up the top sheet from the stack. "That doesn't involve naked?"

"No," Harry assured her, "it doesn't involve naked."

She whimpered, pursing her lips at Justin as she reached up to trail her fingertips suggestively across the outline of Zach's biceps. "A pity, given that everyone's spouses are out of town and there are so very many fit lads here."

Dutifully, Zach pulled his arm away, tugging down the sleeve of his t-shirt a bit self-consciously where it had ridden up over the sturdy musculature, but he was grinning. "You'll have to cope somehow."

"Suppose I will." Her sigh was fit for the Victorian stage, and she dropped her chin into her cupped hands as she tucked forward over the papers, at once pure professionalism again. "So, back to work, then."

They had all assembled around Harry, letting go of the briefly festive atmosphere for the neverending necessity of a world that didn't care for bubbles or strawberries or laughter, but Luna lagged behind, frowning near the doorway with her fingers thoughtfully drumming the rim of her glass. "No, I think Sally-Anne's right."

Whether she'd been speaking to anyone in particular or just to herself was often hard to tell, but it didn't matter. Everyone froze, unsure of how to react or whether they should explain the concept of joking to her, but Harry erred on the side of caution with a firm shake of his head. "Absolutely not." She looked offended, and he smiled a little uncomfortably, still not backing down but trying to take the edge off of it with a forced chuckle. "Do you have any idea how fast I'd be how fired if I even thought of letting my officers have an orgy?"

Luna seemed about to argue, and Neville stepped in quickly, backing his friend. "Not nearly as fast as Hannah would have my head."

As if they were the ones being absurd, Luna rolled her eyes, gliding over to join them and lowering herself to the floor in front of the fireplace in a pool of brilliant skirts, spreading them around her in a way that couldn't help but remind him of Trelawney arraying herself mystically before the Divination class. "I mean that you all need to unwind a bit. You've been working for two weeks solid, if I'm not mistaken...barely even sleeping."

Zach ignored the patronizing tone, saluting her with an evidence tally. "And we're going to keep working for two more years solid if that's what it takes to catch the Nevermore and do the rest of our jobs besides."

Another soulful sigh, and she reached out to Demmy, who was sitting nearest her on the floor, ignoring the way the Auror stiffened as Luna started to unplait her hair, running her fingers through the dense curls. "Surely one of you remembers the concept of diminished returns. You've been exhausting yourselves. You're going to completely lose the capacity to think creatively before long, if you haven't already."

That, right there, was the most maddening bit about Luna Lovegood. Not the conspiracy theories or the clothing that seemed to have fallen through the world's rummage sale or the outlandish things that came out of her kitchen, but the talent she had for being so right at the exact moment you'd rather she least be and would be most embarrassed by it. Neville bit his lip, knowing that anything he'd say right now would probably just be so petulant as to be downright childish, but Sally-Anne had already flopped back against the couch in defeat. "She's got a point. I had to re-do an entire hour's worth of paperwork today because I realized I'd been using my maiden name."

Zach made a mumbling noise, repeating himself more clearly, cheeks flushed, when everyone turned to look. "I forgot my own kid's birthday."

"Put milk and sugar in the same tea three times," Tony confessed.

"That's nothing." Ron's short bark of a laugh held the boastful tone in his own shortcomings only possible from that many siblings. "I put my own pants on backwards and didn't notice until I had to take a piss."

Demmy fished awkwardly in her pocket – Luna still had firm hold of her hair – withdrawing a small silver box with the distinctive diagonal slash of L&B. "I may possibly have started smoking again."

"Oh, that's darlin', love." Brian answered her revelation with a half-finished hand roll from his own coat pocket, tucking it expertly into the corner of his mouth. "Some of us weren't fools enough in this line o' work to stop."

Zach did not quite catch him in time to keep him from lighting it, but it was snatched away before the first mouthful of smoke was fully exhaled, vanished in a sparking crackle of magic in mid-air. Harry moved quickly into the gap of tension between the two, both hands raised in concession. "Ok, there may be a little bit of a stress issue, I'll admit. So what are you suggesting, Luna?"

She looked like a well-petted cat, letting go of Demmy's hair and lacing her fingers together to stretch indulgently before she answered. "Well, we can always start with some stress reduction exercises – stretching, deep breathing, visualisation work - and then maybe some free, creative play, you know?" Her voice brightened as she ticked off the possibilities on her fingers, and he wouldn't have been surprised if she had bounced to her feet with a little dance. "I have plenty of paints and clay to get people's expressive energies reinvigorated!"

"My 'I ain't no hippie arsewipe energies' are compellin' me to insert a knob joke," Brian retorted sullenly. He had gotten another fag, and was steadfastly ignoring Zach's vicious glare as he cupped a hand to light it. "If we cants take a hard case, what're we doin' bein' Aurors, I ask?"

"A compromise, maybe." Neville suggested carefully, glancing first at Harry to make sure he wasn't inappropriately usurping the other man's authority. "All respect, Luna, but I think that what you're proposing would be so...unaccustomed for most of us that it would be more uncomfortable than helpful. But you do have a point. What if we wrap the work that absolutely needs to be done tonight as quickly as we can, then just..." he spread his hands hopefully, nodding towards the emptied champagne bottle that sat beside Harry. "Relax? Put on some music, have a few pints, let things go for a while?"

Sally-Anne hoisted the remains of her drink in support. "Sounds like fucking heaven to me."

"My, my. Again with the orgy," Justin raised one prim eyebrow.

"Do you just never get laid?"

Even with her magical eyes, the glare she shot towards Ron bordered on a hex. "It's being able to see through all your clothes, what can I say? And I get laid more than you do, Weasley, I'd bet a year's salary on it."

It had been meant no differently than the rest of the banter, but Ron nearly choked on the mouthful of champagne he had taken, the color rising so quickly that they all realized an invisible line had been crossed, and no one really wanted to find out exactly what, why, or how. Zach cut in, passing out forms to occupy hands as quickly as possible. "Okay then. Right. Wrapping up work. Don't give me that look, I've got more than enough kids to have developed full immunity. Harry, what're we on?"

"I'm actually – " Harry thumbed through the pile, but it was transparently busywork, his eyes still narrowed as they scanned his best friend's face for more information than Neville knew he would have been able to read from anyone besides perhaps Hannah or Seamus. He seemed satisfied quickly enough, however, and shook his head briskly, suddenly back to full attention."I've been working with Ron on this one – thinking about taking a page from Dumbledore's book."

Justin raised a finger in warning, crossing to claim one of the armchairs in the somehow dignified sprawl of a medieval lord. "You're never going to work boots with live goldfish in the heels, Harry, no matter how much you want to."

Harry didn't miss a beat. "Sadly, I agree, and I don't think I could manage three feet of beard in the kind of time crunch we have either. So we're looking at laying a trap."

Ron had joined him on the coffee table now, and whatever had almost happened was long gone as he slipped seamlessly onto the last word of Harry's sentence. "Make the Nevermore think they have open targets, but lay enough of ours in wait that we can nab the bastard with minimal risk to the decoys."

"Um, Harry..." Demmy raised a hand tentatively, "you're an orphan and the Commander was damned near so within the same week. That doesn't seem like a plan where minimal risk worked too well."

"We're not going to overthink it to the degree he did," Ron retorted. "Two targets, lock everyone else down, and no elaborate hiding or baiting. Whatever is driving the Nevermore, they're desperate. They've taken huge risks to get at the target, and they mentally and emotionally need to strike within twenty four hours of a scroll. If we take away all but two targets, they'll have no choice."

Tony nodded thoughtfully, contemplating the reflection of the firelight on the last few drops of his champagne. "So why not take away all but one?"

"Because then that might be pushing it _too _obviously towards being a trap," Harry finished. "We're going to make it clear that we're pulling the entire hot list to safety, but our two decoys are people who have an excuse for not being able to go in immediately and for why we'd think they were safe."

"And those would be?" Zach prompted.

"Headmistress McGonagall and Justin."

Harry's announcement hit the room like a jinx in a ricochet of open mouths and shocked stares. The only person other than the two best friends who didn't seem stunned was Justin, but Neville quickly realized that of course he knew. He'd have to know. Still, for him to just be sitting there, looking _bored _if anything at the proposition of being used for bait for one of the most ruthless serial killers in wizarding history required an iron bravery he couldn't help but admire.

Demmy made an attempt at a whistle that was too dry, coming out instead as a long, hissing breath that still managed to convey the group sentiment clearly enough. "_Shit_."

"For this to work, the Loch's gonna get crowded," Harry adjusted his glasses in the habit he had carried since the first time Neville could ever recall him addressing a large, uncertain group back in the Hogs Head during fifth year. "We have to pull the entire extended hot list. Give them no other potential victims; no one who would matter to anyone in this room, because if he's striking at Neville or myself, hitting our people would do it. All your families, all your really close friends." He looked over the frames to the fireplace sternly. "Luna, that means you and Rolf go tomorrow."

Luna had been only half listening if at all, her legs woven into a lotus, spine arched sinuously backwards to lay her forearms against the carpet in some impossible pose, but now she snapped upright again so harshly that it made Neville wince just to see. "I have -"

"Snape used you as bait to get me once," he pointed out quietly, not wanting to get into the fight he knew was coming. "It wouldn't take a genius to use you again."

The large, pale blue eyes had narrowed to splinters of ice. "I'm no wisp-wand, Neville, I can take care of myself."

"So could Shacklebolt," Ron interjected bluntly. "He's being buried tomorrow."

Luna crossed her arms tightly, chin jutting in a defiance that would have been cute if any of them hadn't long learned the perils of underestimating her. "I won't go."

"You don't have a choice," Harry matched her easily in raw stubbornness, his own arms folded in the same immovable posture. "You're being ordered into protective custody."

"I'll disappear."

"We have grounds to arrest you. I signed the warrant myself. We decided not to, because you've been more than cooperative, but -"

"Ain't there another way to go about this?" Something in Brian's voice interrupted the argument as easily as if he'd shouted, and far more unsettlingly so. He sounded...rattled, but Neville refused to accept that as possible so simply. This was the bloke Shacklebolt had first described to him as 'something like a Hungarian Horntail's arsehole, only tougher and less cuddly,' and the only times he'd heard anything approaching this tone was when something truly exceptionally bad was about to happen. Human sacrifice hell rising on earth kind of bad. Literally.

"We've tried other ways." Did Harry not hear it, or did he just not know what it meant, because he was answering as if it was a perfectly normal question, or if anything, as if he were annoyed at having his faceoff with Luna broken. "We're just amassing a body count. That's not fucking acceptable on my watch."

"If you're bringin' in that many, what's the odds you're gonna pull the Nevermore in with?" The close-lipped, growled chuckle crossed far beyond cynical. "And then the wolf's in with the lambs, it is."

Neville could see the tendons in Zach's neck tighten at the accusation, and the other man snatched the Galleon from his pocket, flipping it into the air and catching it with a fierce snap of his fist barely an inch from Brian's well-broken nose. "Then the wolf's in with a lot of other very protective wolves."

Brian didn't flinch, but one corner of his scarred mouth quirked up in a cold smirk. "Not t'put too fine a point on it, but ya never guessed me for one o' the Slaugh team, ya didn't."

Sally-Anne was not one to beat about the bush. She had her wand out, on her feet and her stance was firing-range perfect, both hands locked and the tip glowing as it aimed directly between Brian's eyes, her voice hard enough to crack diamond. "Are you the Nevermore, Brian?"

The tension in the air was literally visible, the number of powerful witches and wizards on edge charging the room with so much static that hair stood on end, cinders from the fireplace forming strange patterns, the smoke from the smouldering fag crawling like a worried puppy to the palm of Zach's hand. Brian stood up, taking a single step forward and placing the tip of his finger against her wand, ignoring the hiss and sizzle of burning skin as he pushed it aside, lifting the first two fingers of his other hand almost directly against her face and enunciating clearly. "Fuck you."

"Guys, we can't be turning against each other." Neville put one hand calmly on each shoulder, guiding both hands down with a look that was equally asking them not to argue and not to make him take the next step. "If it's one of us, we're so far beyond screwed it doesn't even bear thinking about. Harry's right. This is our best chance."

There was a long, long pause, the two Aurors still staring at one another like wary predators on the edge of disputed territory, Sally-Anne's eyes flashing through more colours than a fireworks display, but slowly, they backed down, and Demmy warily edged a suggestion into the new space between them. "What about Finnigan, then? I've heard rumours he's made an offer."

Both Harry's and Neville's heads swivelled to her in startled disbelief, and Harry's face had turned a deep, flustered red. "How the hell -" Neville started, but she cut him off with a pragmatic shrug.

"Thin walls, Commander."

Harry began, very slowly, to knock his forehead against the side of the couch. "Oh for Merlin's -"

"What _about _using him?" Tony said, seeming as if he couldn't quite believe his own suggestion. "He's got a knack for finding people who don't want to be found."

Zach snorted roughly. "And making hash out of them."

Ron smirked in a way that Neville never wanted to see again, bouncing his wand lightly on the palm of his other hand. "What do you think'll happen if _I _get my hands on the bastard?"

"Ron..."

Luna's gently appeasing tone and the implied plea for peace was completely ignored, but Harry's rough decisiveness and squared shoulders as he sat up again carried far more weight. "We're doing it this way. That's my final word. We don't start unleashing vigilantes unless we have absolutely, completely run out of all other possible options."

Brian spat past them into the fireplace, and Neville half expected to see the flames leap or change colour, though they did nothing of the sort as he turned on his heel and stalked away, dropping heavily into the armchair opposite Justin. "This is mental."

"Give me a better idea," Harry challenged.

"Finnigan!"

"That's not a better idea!"

"I want Seamus at the Loch." Zach was the one among them with the most to lose in raw numbers, and there was an acute awareness of it in his posture and the thing in his eyes that could re-negotiate any morality in the name of his children. "Because he's a cold bastard when he needs to be. I want to know that if we've made a horrible mistake and, as Brian put it, set the wolf among the lambs, that there's a damned vicious fox in there with who won't hesitate to do whatever it takes to whoever it is."

"Don't do this, Harry, lad, please, don't do this." Sweat had broken out across Brian's forehead, and he cuffed at it with the back of one wrist that Neville could scarcely believe was shaking visibly. "Whoever the Nevermore is, they know too fucking much. They'll smell the trap."

Harry's voice was cool, even, but the green eyes had narrowed fractionally, and Neville could all but watch the well-trained mind ticking over the various tells that betrayed Brian's fear more and more with every passing heartbeat. "The compulsion for a serial killer to strike is intense, and this one is cocky. I think it will work."

He wasn't arguing back, he was pushing, goading, seeking more information. There was more here than a dispute about tactics, and from the only member who had lost no one and with no one to lose, the only one already an outsider; never Hogwarts, never DA, old enough to be the father of any one of them and traitor to his uniform once already. Glances popped from one old comrade to another, disagreements forgotten as orders were passed and contingency plans made as silently as they had once networked around Harry when he had first returned.

Their silent communication seemed to have passed unnoticed to Brian, whose normally ruddy complexion had faded to a sickly white, his voice rising high and tight. "But what if we miss someone? What if there's another target besides who we're settin' bait?"

"That's why we need to be comprehensive." Harry said calmly. Tony eased sideways, the adjustment coming across as nothing more than discomfort as he braced one hand against the back of Brian's chair and bent to rub at one knee, but the other hand held his wand, now pointed solidly at the nape of the Irishman's neck. "I'm even having the Dursleys brought in."

Ron grimaced distastefully. "Oh, that'll be fun."

"Obliviate is a beautiful thing." There was no amusement in Harry's answering smile.

"Can I punch your cousin, Harry?" Demelza asked, her Cornish accent giving the question a falsely breezy lilt. "Just once, if we're Obliviating anyway?"

"We'll talk about that later," Harry said, but his eyes never left Brian, and for all the kindness of the words, Neville felt the closing jaws of the snare. "Brian, are you all right?"

"No, no I fuckin' aint!" His fists had tightened so hard that thin trickles of blood seeped between his fingers from where the nails had cut the palms, and the fear had mutated now to rage that burned the air with the stink of ozone. "Whatever Weasley's gonna do that fucker ain't a sweet Granny's kiss compared t'-"

"Brian..." Neville gave the name as a warning, but it went unheeded.

"Oh, Jesus...but ah, we can't know what he knows, can we?" He had jumped to his feet, and now more wands were trained on him, no effort made to hide the threat, but either he didn't notice or more likely didn't care as he spun to pace a tight, desperate cage of his mind's dimensions, his own wand still holstered and ignored as he raved. "Dead man's diaries and in everywhere like a bloody ghost...can't take the chance. Gotta be another way. Got to be another fucking way asides locking everyone up. If someone's left out, they're good as dead, ain't they?"

"If there's someone from your family back in Ireland that wouldn't mix well with Finnigan," Harry said smoothly, "I'll put a detail on them personally."

"Thirty fuckin' years I ain't – but can't be leavin'...no choice." The pacing broke, and something in Brian with it. He fell to his knees, his hands cupping his face as the ranting became an open, broken-hearted wail. "Ain't goddamned fair."

It was a kind of horror to watch their normally ironclad teammate coming apart at the seams like this, and a litany of possibilities, each more sickening than the last, accused themselves into Neville's mind, making his skin crawl even as he could not suppress the instinct to reach out in comfort. "I don't und-"

"His name's John." The reply was little more than a whisper, but it held the undivided attention of every one of the nine men and women in the shocking fear and hope of what the name could mean. "And he ain't me fuckin' flatmate. He's me...me...oh, it ain't none your business, ain't never been none no one's business me whole fuckin' life, and if you start thinkin' I'm t'fuckin' token fairy copper now, so fuckin' help me I'll -"

It was the last thing any of them had expected, and the slow, dawning comprehension of the deeply intimate confession painted disbelief over each face in turn. No one knew what to do, what to say, least of all Neville, and they stood in helpless tableau, watching Brian curl further into himself, sobbing openly now. His hands had come down, and they hung limp, defeated at his sides. Neville had no idea how to handle something like this; it had never even been mentioned when he was growing up, and the few classmates at school and people he had known in his adult life who were gay simply _were_, and you didn't talk about it except to remember to use words like "partner" and "significant other."

He knew the slurs, the insults, even if he'd never used them, he had even heard once that Derek didn't feel safe at home and that they all had to be very, very careful never to let Rory Adams know about his son and Steve, but that was a world away from this man – nearly twice his age, an Auror who had worked the streets of Belfast in the hell of the eighties without wavering – now curled into a ball and weeping like a child whose world had been shattered. It was a fear he'd never known, never imagined, really, and it slowly dawned on him in a creeping chill how incredibly lucky he was and how much he had taken for granted the simple luxury to have fallen in love with a woman.

There was no concept of time, not for him; not, he suspected, for any of them, but at last Tony shifted to his knees, the posture one that Neville knew to be excruciating but allowed him to bend and look Brian directly in the face. "During the Battle of Hogwarts, Bellatrix Lestrange took the Commander down. The young man who took command then was named Stephen Cornfoot, and he saved the lives of everyone here and for all intents and purposes won the battle single-handedly, or at least forced Riddle to call ceasefire because he was winning, he'd taken control and turned the chaos." His voice was shaking now, but whether from pain or emotion, Neville didn't know. "They put a price on his head, and they had to cut him in half to kill him. He was my friend, my roommate for seven years, his boyfriend died at the front doors fighting fucking werewolves _hand to hand_, and if anyone says a word against you, Brian, they'll have me to deal with."

Slowly, Demmy stood, crossing to join Tony. She extended a hand, easing him to sit on the floor as she took a place beside him. "And Sally-Anne and me. Rowan Glynnis was as queer as they come and she turned us into soldiers. She saved our lives."

"Me as well," Harry nodded confidently, though he still seemed a bit rattled. "Rowan gave her life protecting Ginny."

"And she's my sister," Ron agreed.

Luna took one of the stones from the cluster of necklaces around her neck, placing it on the side table for Brian. "This is Sardonyx. It's projective, aligned with masculine love. I wear it for my life-partner, but I have another at home. It extends protection, promotes communication, courage, peace, and strengthens relationships."

"Count me in." Zach seemed uncomfortable, but whether with the topic or how close they'd all come to arresting or assassinating Brian, it was impossible to tell. Nonetheless, there was no hesitation in his assertion. "Derek would have been one of the best Aurors in the business. I've asked myself what he'd do a dozen times a day."

"I never cared who my friends fancied," Sally-Anne shrugged. "And considering that was with Sue openly bi and sharing a shower and a bedroom with me, it's not about to start now."

Neville swallowed hard, licking dry lips and feeling ridiculously inadequate in his offering. "I never asked who anyone loved in the DA, you know. I mean, we had a problem with Sloper, but that was because he was sleeping with _everyone _and causing drama. As far as...well, gay or not, the important thing was would they have our back, would they fight, and I know you'll do those things. That you do them. Have done them."

"If I'm not going to question the sexuality of the man next to me in a Tornado over Afghanistan, I'm not about to start bothering about it on the ground." Justin gestured with the empty champagne flute as if speaking before Parliament. "You're a bloody fine Auror."

"Shut it, all of you's!" Brian pushed to his feet, stalking away from Demmy and Tony, his face twisted in a feral anger that seemed strange against what Neville had thought was nothing but kindness that had been offered to him. "I don't want no fuckin' pride parade! And if ya think it makes me 'out,' I'll be makin' ya _under _by near about's six feet!"

His wand was out now, sweeping the room, the tears picking out the thin scars that crossed his face. "It ain't none your business, ain't never been, and the only reason I's said a word o' this is that I ain't gonna find out the hard way just how many secrets the fuckin' Nevermore knows!"

"Then I'll put a detail on John, and that's the end of that." Harry stood, straightening his robes, and the absolute command brooked no hint of argument as he turned to each officer. "Not another word regarding Auror Callahan's sexual orientation from any witch or wizard on this force, and nothing leaves this room. That's. An. Order."

Neville nodded, relieved to feel at last on solid ground. "I'll double that order for my DA."

Brian's chest was still heaving, his eyes still those of something cornered with a lot of teeth and no sense of humour, but the wand came down, and Harry let out a deep breath, brushing his hands together. "We set our trap. We nail the Nevermore. And then we can really celebrate."

"Find him," Ron agreed savagely, "and may God have mercy on his non-existent soul."

"No." Neville snapped, more harshly than he had meant to. "We don't want to use a vigilante, we don't become vigilantes. We bring the Nevermore in for trial. That's all. You say you admired Derek; the boy was a small continent, and he never once gave in to just being a thug."

Zach found his glass, tapping it with his want to refill it, even if just with water. Another wave and flick of the wand filled the others, and he tipped his towards Neville and Harry in proposal of a toast. "Then we protect every single person in our power and we bring the Nevermore to trial without a scratch on his worthless head. For Derek, who would have been one of the best in green."

Tony was still tight-lipped in pain, but he summoned the cup to himself and joined the salute. "For Mike and Terry, who never let anyone else define them but would have had this figured in under five minutes."

"For my dad, who always taught us to do the right thing."

"For my Gran, who never let anyone push her around, and for my Mum and Dad, who never stopped trying."

"For old Mad-Eye, who taught me constant vigilance and what bravery meant."

"For Russ, who took on t'damned Devil hisself with not a soul believin' him."

"For Colin, who'd have been here, lightsabre blazing, with some damned perfect inspirational speech, and who saved all our arses with his mad brave kids."

"For Morag, who'd be calling us all pussies for even thinking about taking a break."

"For Rachel, and all those we could not save, that their ranks not increase by another dear and priceless soul."

"For the fallen." Neville hadn't even meant to say it aloud, but it was right, and no further order needed to be given for the wands to raise, for the silver sparks to meet in the centre of the ceiling.

"For the fallen."

TO BE CONTINUED


	11. Famulatus

Neville thought they had been optimistic in predicting a week, but he had underestimated both the efficiency of Harry's department and the restorative powers of a night's genuine relaxation followed by ten hours per person of strictly mandated sleep. For all that it had been gut-wrenching to discover at first, finding such a highly placed supplier who was so thoroughly, genuinely cooperative had been the break the case had finally needed, and it had not been nearly a week. In point of fact, it was only Sunday afternoon, and the date added a sweetly smug exhilaration to the triumph of having the individual Justin had dubbed their "Toxic Moriarty" tidily cuffed to the interrogation room chair.

She was nothing like the parade of possibilities his imagination had offered him as he had examined the files, and the surprise ran deeper than her gender. In his lifetime, he had seen more than his share of evil people, including women, and the one thing they had all had in common was a sense of excess. Whether Bellatrix's black leather, Umbridge's saccharine pink fluff, or Alecto Carrow's rough androgyny, there had been a comforting _wrongness_, their deviance displayed clearly for anyone who was willing to look to see.

This one was different. She was somewhere in her fifties or perhaps at most early sixties, her hair a simple, conservative bob carefully but not fussily straightened, her makeup flattering but not too much, and she was dressed in muted golden tones that played well to her dark complexion, the cut and style of her robes available in any shop. She seemed like anyone he passed a dozen times a day on the streets without a second look, and it shook him deeply to realize that this empress of poisons was someone he probably wouldn't have hesitated to trust his own children with.

She was staring steadily at him, at most a bit inconvenienced by the awkward position that shackled her wrists, and Neville took a deep breath, trying to find something in the deep brown eyes that would give him that surety as he set up the recording device. There was still none of the madness that would have been most comforting, but there was something cold, something arrogant, a steely lack of remorse that would have to do.

He touched the recorder to activate it, clearing his throat and praying that his voice would not betray him at the cost of the power he was bizarrely uncertain of this early in the proceedings. "Nineteenth May, 2008, sixteen twenty-two hours. Aurors Longbottom and Goldstein present for initial interrogation of Beryl Rosier, suspected in sixty-eight counts of trafficking in illegal substances, eighty-one counts of manufacture of illegal substances, eleven counts of conspiracy, three counts of racketeering, and two counts of accessory to murder. Other charges may follow upon further examination of evidence. Mrs. Rosier, you have been read your rights as a suspect in this case. Do you understand these rights?"

She did not move, did not even blink. "I do."

"And you understand that these proceedings are being recorded with intention to use these recordings as evidence in your criminal trial."

Again, not a twitch of nervousness, no sign of defeat or fear despite the magnitude of the charges leveled against her that could easily amount to a dozen lifetimes in Azkaban. "I do."

Neville could hold the eye contact no longer, and he dropped his gaze to the thick file in front of him, paging through it with a determinedly casual air. "And you have waived your right to have counsel present, and are participating in these proceedings voluntarily, under no coercion, threat, implicit threat, or other duress and having been made no promises or offers based on your statements?"

"Yes, yes, and yes." At last, there was emotion, but it was only a twinge of frustration, as if they had come to her door on a busy day with a long-winded speech to collect her signature on an insignificant petition. "May we get on with this, boys?"

The blatantly disrespectful term prickled his own sense of annoyance, but he ironically welcomed it, as it gave him the foothold he needed to look up again, once more feeling back in control of the situation. She was underestimating them, and that was something he could work with. "Mrs. Rosier, you have been apprehended in connection to -"

She sighed, cutting off his introduction with a put-upon roll of her eyes. "This is ridiculous."

The Aurors exchanged a look, Tony leaning forward on the table towards her, arms crossed. "What exactly do you find ridiculous here? Because I think the evidence against you was fairly clear, but if I'm wrong - and plenty of people will tell you I can be wrong often as the next bloke - I'd quite fancy hearing your explanation."

"_This _is ridiculous." Her shoulders moved as if she were about to gesture, but the cuffs stopped her, and she indicated the room with her head instead. "The questions, the formalities. We all know where this is going to go."

Tony nodded pleasantly, as if they were conversing in her house over a simple cup of tea. "Before a judge and the criminal branch of the Wizengamot, certainly."

Her full lips twisted in an expression halfway between a smile and a smirk. "Who will hear two words and it will be over."

Neville raised an eyebrow, feigning innocent bemusement. "Guilty plea?"

"Death Eater." She snapped the epithet as if it burned her tongue, but her eyes said that it was a hatred cultivated rather than innate. "That my husband was a Death Eater."

"All due respect, Mrs. Rosier," Tony pointed out mildly, "your husband could have been a Vicar and we'd have still found you tits-high in blue glass flasks that were not full of Butterbeer."

The heat that had been there only a second ago was gone completely again, and she shrugged. "I make my living."

"People have died from your 'living'." Neville allowed just a little of the revulsion and anger to show at the edges of his words, though he did not raise his voice at all. "And that's not even counting the addictions, the ruined lives, the poisonings from tainted goods. We started this case because two thirteen year-old -"

To his amazement, she laughed, and she actually seemed a bit offended, as if he had the audacity to ask her about the contents of a diary he had stolen. "Brazen of you, don't you think?"

Despite himself, Neville frowned, genuinely confused. "Excuse me?"

"Do you think I don't remember who you are, _Auror _Longbottom?" There was a patronizing sneer to the title that indulged it as a silly affectation rather than a genuine rank. "People have died from your claim to fame as well. Quite a few more than two. Or is there some tremendous moral line that is crossed between thirteen and fourteen? Or does it only count when the maiming comes from a bottle, unless I'm terribly mistaken and it's a pure coincidence that the gentleman in his mid twenties who follows you like a puppy and has such a peculiar edge to his gait happened to have some other form of tragic accident?"

There was no hiding that the accusation had cut, as she had known it would, and that he couldn't prevent it only deepened the heat he could feel rising in his face. It was not, however, nearly enough to rattle him as much as she had clearly hoped, and he forced himself to ignore the insults against both of them, though he still bit out his reply as a warning that such things would not be given infinite leeway. "What I did and what _we _did in the DA in '98 has no bearing on this case."

"Doesn't it?" Her eyelashes fluttered in girlish innocence. "I thought your type were always interested in motive."

Now the patronizing smile was his to turn back on her. "Do you expect me to believe that you set up this entire network to somehow get back at me and the DA?"

Another laugh, this one reminding him a little of Umbridge in the inappropriate giggle with its arsenic aftertaste. "Oh I couldn't give less than pixie shit what happens to you or your little friends, Auror Longbottom."

He matched her pleasantry for pleasantry. "Then I'm afraid I'm not quite following you."

"My husband died that night." All trace of girlishness was gone now, the sweetness gone bitter so quickly that it cast doubt whether it had ever been there at all. "Whether either of you killed him, one of your little friends, or Harry bloody Potter himself doesn't particularly matter. But he died with a snake and skull on his forearm, and that was enough for the Ministry."

His eyes narrowed, and he glanced to be certain the little red glow promised that their words were still being captured. "In what regard?"

"In the regard that there was no widow's pension." Even beneath the layer of cosmetics, her color had deepened, and he could feel the pent up anger of years so strongly that he shifted position, his right hand casually at the opening of his left sleeve, ready to draw if she manifested. "In the regard that they seized our house, our bank vault, shut down our potions emporium in Knockturn Alley, and apparently believed that Wade and I could just eat guilt the rest of our lives."

Tony had taken similar precautions, though his eyes had never left the subject. "So you turned to selling illegal potions."

"Not at first."

"What did you do at first?"

Her spine straightened impeccably, and she drew herself up as tall as the restraints allowed, her head held pridefully erect, her eyes unflinching and refusing shame at the confession. "Lived on couches, on the charity of friends and relatives, scraped up a few Knuts here and there brewing simple salves and remedies, watched my son bury his pride begging for odd jobs from the few people who didn't care that he'd worn a uniform that he'd been assigned at the age of eleven that was in a suddenly unfashionable color."

Despite what he knew she had done, Neville felt genuine compassion for what she had gone through, and not for the first time he wished he had been more aware at the time of what had been going on with the losing side. Auror training and his own people and simply trying to navigate what were unbelievably or not still the last few years of his teens had been enough that he'd just naively assumed that others would do the right thing, and more and more he was learning that perhaps they hadn't, or at least that it was so much more complex than he'd been willing or perhaps able to consider.

His instinct was to offer her a cup of tea, but that was for several reasons - not the least of them the cuffs - not possible, and he tried to express his sincerity in inflection alone. "I'm sorry for your hardship, Mrs. Rosier, but -"

"With _all due respect_, Auror Longbottom, take your sorry, put it on the end of your wand, sit, and rotate slowly. I don't need your apologies." The crude refusal startled him, and she enjoyed that for a moment before she continued, her voice dripping disdain. "Fortunately, the Ministry did help us out eventually."

Tony replied into the gap of Neville's anger, thankfully giving no indication that her response had been anything but expected. "How so?"

"By spending our money dry. By cutting more and more things to more and more people. By taxing apothecaries until their doors closed. By making people desperate. By giving me a whole new clientele willing to buy all kinds of things that they couldn't get or hadn't known they needed."

Now even Tony could not keep himself completely neutral, and Neville got the feeling that if he had any idea what had happened to Ricky, even someone so temperate might be moved to slap her at this moment. "No one _needed _the shit you were selling."

One perfectly shaped eyebrow arched knowingly. "Ask _them_."

Neville could hear his emotion betrayed in the deepening of his Tyke, but his tone was otherwise perfectly calm. "I know at least one."

"And did they need it?"

"It could have killed him."

She pursed her lips and shook her head, her eyes widened in a mockery of sympathy. "I'm sorry for his hardship."

He would not rise to it. He would not. This bitch needed to go to prison for a long, long, long time, and he would not be the one responsible for her getting away with it on a technicality. Neville sat back in the chair, tugging his uniform to hang perfectly as he took a deep breath, then straightening the stack of papers that sat atop the file folder. His reply was flawless, official, letter of the law ice. "There were plenty of alternatives available to you. There are rehabilitation programs for -"

"Don't give me that line." She scoffed. "Do you even know the first thing about those programs?"

"They were put in place," Neville recited calmly, "to offer options for former Death Eaters who were willing to be rehabilitated into society, and for their families."

"Yes, of course." Her teeth gleamed white on too broad a smile. "Just submit to every form of humiliation the Wizengamot can devise, and eventually, if you're very lucky, you might get one of the menial, minimum-wage positions available with three people crawling over their own grandfathers' graves for every one opening. No thank you, sir."

Tony turned the interrogation back on track, waving a hand at the impressive heap of evidence she had amassed against herself. "Did you really think you would be able to keep this up for the rest of your life? That you'd never get caught?"

She tilted her head as though the answer were so obvious she couldn't believe he'd asked the question. "I nearly wasn't, was I?"

He smiled, pointing out the equally obvious. "You're sitting here."

For the first time, there was a flash of resentment at her situation, an indication that she actually understood just how much trouble she was in. "Because my son was an idiot and got greedy and bought from one of your little lapdogs, not because of some great moral superiority or brilliance in your precious system."

"Even if it hadn't been for Luna, we'd have caught you eventually." Neville insisted. "Even if just by running down your supplier for your bottles."

He had adjusted to her sarcastic, superior self-confidence by now, but he still didn't expect the look of pity she gave him now, one that made it seem he was a very small child who had failed to grasp some absurdly simple concept for the fifteenth time and though sweet, was probably rather dim. "Not, darling, in a hundred years."

Tony shook his head, tapping the photograph of one slowly revolving, brilliant azure flask. "There aren't that many glass-smiths in the wizarding world."

"And there you are." She nodded in approval. "Right there, proving my point."

"Which is…?"

There was a long pause over a contemplative tilt of her head, but at last she decided to grant him his answer. "The Ministry shut me out of the wizarding world. Very effectively. So I had to look elsewhere. Just to survive, at first. Now, it wasn't easy. No Muggle birth certificate, identification…but there are forgers on that side of the statute too, you know, and they like gold as much as wizards do."

Neville only just managed to not actually beat his head against the table in the sheer, bloody stupidity of them at having missed something so blindingly obvious in retrospect. "Sweet Merlin, that's why we haven't been able to find your suppliers. You've been working with Muggles."

"You say it like they're Martians." She taunted. "But they are to you, aren't they? Were to me too, but desperation's a very good educator. It taught me about credit cards, and the internet, and postal boxes, and just how easy it really is when you stop swallowing the Ministry pap about the world ending at the entrance to Diagon Alley."

Tony nodded crisply, the tight set of his mouth betraying his own frustration at their oversight as he made a note on the top page of the file. "So we add breaking the Statute of Secrecy to your charges."

"'Witch' isn't branded on my forehead, boy," she shot back quickly. "They didn't put me in the dunking chair when I gave them my money or bought their goods or rented their flat or took to living in a world where no one asked or knew or cared what color Wade's tie had been in school. And they won't care when the Ministry falls and whatever sentence they lay down on me means nothing any more because they've run out of my money again."

"That might be a very long time." Neville pointed out calmly, having fully recovered from the previous surprise, though he had decided that there would soon be a long talk with Justin about what exactly one could and could not get in the Muggle world. "Maybe longer than the rest of your life. People have bet against the Ministry before and lost very badly."

She shrugged, unmoved. "I'll take my chances."

"You could improve them by turning in the rest of your network," Tony suggested.

"I like my odds just fine as it is, thank you."

Neville found the document he was looking for, turning it so that she could see the list of leads they were already tracing from the documents and other information taken from her flat. "We're going to find them anyway. It would make it easier on them as well as you and your son."

"No, I don't think you will," she refuted firmly. "You're still thinking in a world that doesn't really exist, and even the illusion of it isn't going to last much longer. You're an antique, Longbottom, which is a pity so young." She paused, her eyes scanning him intently. "You're wearing a wedding ring. Do you have children?"

Automatically, he folded his right hand over his left, as if he could undo what she had already seen. "That's none of your concern."

"I think you do. Big hero like you, probably found some wide-eyed pretty little thing who's been popping you out babies as often as you care to fuck her in between your other adoring fans."

Neville decided to call her on her game directly, bring it out into the open and let her know that he was not as ignorant as she seemed to believe. "If you're trying to get a rise out of me to get this case dismissed on police misconduct, you're going to have to try a lot harder."

"Oh, I already know you're hard as dragonhide, boy. I know what you did to your little friends, your school chums."

This time, it honestly didn't hurt at all, though whether that was because he was onto her games or because he had said it to himself so many times that the wounds had long scarred over, he didn't know, and it didn't matter. "I live with what I've done, and you're going to have a long time to think about what you have. You had a nice network, Mrs. Rosier. You to your son to the suppliers to the dealers and you never had to get anywhere near the people who swallowed the hell you profited from. But that's going to be changing."

She frowned a little, curious despite herself. "You're going to be poetic and lock me up with the cauldron freaks, I take it?"

"No; a lot of them would probably tear you limb from limb, and that wouldn't work very well for having you properly tried and convicted." Neville admitted bluntly. "But we are going to make sure that there is plenty of first-hand testimony at your trial of exactly what you were selling, and you're going to have to sit there for every word of it."

The smirk and shield were back. "I'll make sure I have a hanky."

"Bring two." Tony corrected. "I believe Mrs. Weasley intends to start with the parents of the girls killed by one of your love potions."

"Their blood isn't on my hands."

"If their gold was good enough for you, so is their blood."

"That's your opinion," she said silkily, "and I don't think much of your opinion, although I do think I'll have more fun watching your self-righteous Ministry come down in pieces and going back to my adopted world than you will at my trial. But that's neither here nor there, and I think I'm pretty well done for now. I don't really have anything else to say to you."

Neville shook his head, tapping the file sternly. "We still have more questions for you, Mrs. Rosier."

"That's a pity. I won't be answering them without counsel, I think."

Tony gave her a dubious look, motioning to the recording device that had been running the entire time. "Counsel isn't going to help you much."

"No," she admitted, "but I really don't think I can stand to look at your smug faces any longer without spitting in it, and that would just be more charges, so yes, I invoke my right to end this interrogation by requesting counsel."

He had not, in the course of the entire conversation, wanted to commit a minor act of police brutality quite as much as at that very moment, but Neville simply nodded and closed the file. "Very well. This interrogation is concluded. Recording will continue until the suspect has been removed to be returned to her cell."

There was silence as they carried out the necessary precautions and preparations to move the prisoner, but as he stood behind her, wand hovering over the cuffs, Tony hesitated, an odd expression on his face. "Mrs. Rosier?"

"I told you, I'm done." She twisted her head to look back at him. "That does apply to you as well."

"No, it's not that at all." At the angle he was standing, Neville could not see his friend's face, but his voice was simultaneously formal and vulnerable in a way that made him deeply uncomfortable. He wanted to step around where he could see better, but protocol insisted that he remain by the door. "Now that we've caught you, I'm going to be reassigned to another case, so I don't think I'll have another opportunity, and there's something I'd like you to pass on to your son, since you'll probably see him before I will."

She looked away dismissively, raising her hands behind her back as much as she was able to present him the cuffs. "I'm not interested in -"

"Tell him thank you, please."

"Sarcasm. How utterly original."

"Not sarcasm." And it wasn't, not at all. The cuffs were still on, and Neville decided it was safe for the time being to take a step to the side, letting him see Tony's face clearly now. He looked as he hadn't in a long time, nervous and shy, biting his lip and taking a deep, heavy breath before he spoke with obvious effort. "You were right about the way I walk. During the battle, my feet and lower legs were crushed. It was a long time before I got medical care, and during that time, your son brought me water, bandaged the wounds on my hand and forehead, splinted my legs so the bones wouldn't grind when I was moved, and found a bottle of wine I don't even know where to help ease the pain a little. Tell him I remember, and tell him I'm grateful. I don't know if I did that day or not."

It touched her. She didn't want it to, Neville could see her struggling to make something biting of it, to push it away, but she couldn't, not entirely, and that made him smile. Not in the satisfaction of getting one up on an enemy as he would have supposed it would be, but just in simple pleasure that Tony's incredibly classy gesture had not been entirely wasted and that when she finally did come up with a rebuttal, it rang blatantly shallow to all three of them. "Not so grateful, of course, that you let him go."

"We've all made our choices since then." Tony said simply. "Memory doesn't blind me to the present."

She had recovered herself now, her head high again as the cuffs were opened just long enough to remove them from the chair and then fastened again, the interval in between less than a second and keeping her arms at an angle that left her no freedom of movement. "Nor does it give me any illusions about the future."

"I think we're all better off without illusions." Tony was performing his duties perfectly, but Neville sensed that he was still a little too vulnerable for the verbal sparring, and he replied on his friend's behalf as he took her other arm and opened the door. "Facts will do nicely. And the facts are that unless you've changed your mind, it's time for you to go back to your cell." The handoff to the two Enforcers who had been waiting outside the interrogation room was seamless, and he tipped his head to her politely as they led her away down the long hall towards the holding area. "Good afternoon, Mrs. Rosier."

She could not turn back to him, but her voice carried easily. "Sleep well tonight, _Commander_."

OOO

He hadn't slept well, actually, but it had nothing to do with the parting words Mrs. Rosier had laid on him like a curse. Yes, the nightmares had come. They always came without Hannah, and sometimes with her, though when she was there in the dark beside him they were easier somehow, quicker caught and better soothed, but he had still grown used to them, scars in their own way as well known now in their ache as those which marked his body. It hadn't even been any of the really bad ones; just the familiar one of searching the broken castle endlessly for survivors, finding nothing but shattered corpses, though now there were a few new faces among the litany who had been lost more recently.

What had cost him the sleep had been the scroll that had come just after supper, the mad scramble to get everyone to safety, the harrowing, desperate argument with Luna they had barely won and the heart-pounding fear that they wouldn't (and a call from Hannah that had scared him half to death that something had happened to them, but they were fine and he was absolutely going to call later because he _needed _them so much even if there was no time, never time). Once they'd gotten it all done, it was almost two in the morning, but the entire affair they had been waiting, terrified, ready to find someone dead, for their efforts to be for nothing and too late.

True, they had been too late for one, but that, in its strange way, had been a comfort. Elphias Doge had been a hundred and seventeen, after all, and although there had been a few minutes fear, there had been no sign of an AK after all. He was just an old man, a very, very old man whose time on Earth had run out, and for all that it held a certain sadness, there was something good and right in it in the middle of so many whose threads had been so cruelly prematurely cut. It was how a person should die; well over a century in the world and then just not getting up from a nap in his favorite chair. The body had been turned over to the nurse who had cared for him for the past few years, and they had moved on to lives that could be, needed to be saved.

Now to hope they could do it, that Harry's confidence wasn't as misplaced as Dumbledore's had been. And there, there lay the uneasy sleep. Knowing that he couldn't be on the detail protecting McGonagall, who had done so much for him and the DA, or Justin, his wife's dearest friend. Knowing that he had made other promises whose time had come to call, and that tomorrow - now today - they would have to be kept. Whether he had slept well or not.

The box had come only a few hours before the scrolls, brought by a courier while he had been interrogating Mrs. Rosier, and Neville opened it now, as hesitant as if it could have held a bomb. The contents weren't at all explosive, of course, but he had the distinct feeling they would wreak no less chaos and change in a life that already held too damned much of it. The robes were the same as Draco had worn; a deep, rich Roman purple with an elaborate silver "W" embroidered over the breast. The fabric was an expensive, luxurious wool, soft as a sigh, and it made him shiver as he drew them from the box and ran a hand over the elegant folds.

How many doses of real medicine would this have bought for Ricky? How many month's pension for a widow made at the end of his own wand? How many cuffs and holsters and how many _needs _had been bled from the already-screaming budget for the 'necessity' of this beautiful garment and how in Merlin's name had that been justified and did he want to even become a person who could explain it? Would he become it whether he liked it or not, the same way he had awoken one day to discover he was the kind of man who could watch a dear friend's head torn off in battle and feel nothing but the tactical frustration of losing an officer and their field medic?

He wanted to shove it back in the box, return it with a scornful note and wear his own civilian clothes, or perhaps his Auror's green, maybe even, if it was the Commander of the DA they wanted so much, force them to face the shredded and stained and charred remains of what had once been a schoolboy's uniform. There was a satisfaction to the half-formed ideas, but he didn't allow them to take any real shape, knowing there was no point to it. As Draco had drilled into him, if you didn't play along at least a little, you could do nothing.

And he had to do something. Three weeks ago, he had agreed to take the position for the salary alone, and he was a little ashamed of that now. True enough, the bills hadn't gone away, and with the Leaky's doors shut all this while, the need for gold was more desperate than ever. But so much else had changed in those three weeks. He knew so much more now, so much more than he'd ever wanted to about the ugly, rotting underbelly of his own beloved world.

It felt insurmountable. Too much, too convoluted, too far entrenched and too far gone for any one man, and they had all told him that was true. He could introduce a few bills (maybe, but nothing big, and be prepared for your first dozen or so to get shot down just on principle, can't have the new ones getting cocky), he could sit on a few committees (but nothing too important), but mostly, he was expected to be passed from hand to hand, giving his endorsement here and there to things being done by the _real _politicians, and if he was a very good boy, they might even be things he actually agreed with.

It was sensible, it was pragmatic, it was How The System Works, and it was so much older and bigger and more complicated than he could have hoped to understand with a lifetime's preparation, much less a few weeks shoved in among so much else. He _wasn't _a politician. He was a father, a husband, a teacher, a gardener, even a not-half-bad bartender. But not a politician. Except now he was.

_And yet, _a voice in the back of his head seemed to whisper, _what else haven't you been that you've been? An Auror, a soldier, a knight, a Commander? Where in all the gardens of Willow Creek were the seeds planted that grew into the man who lead the DA? _

Except the DA hadn't been him, hadn't really been a choice. That had been Harry who started it and really, hadn't it been mostly Ginny who had re-started it? It had just kind of wound up with him, and all he'd done was his best, and everything that had happened in Ireland had been more of the same. Just doing the best with what madness life kept throwing at him, and if it wasn't anything he'd wanted, it was what he'd gotten, and that was that. You just kept steady and kept at it and tried your damnedest to do the right thing as hell happened around you.

He remembered the sweaty palms, the dry mouth, the shaking hands that had faced the first meeting of how in Merlin's name were they his DA now? So young, so long ago, so hard and so easy to see that terrified boy in the person he'd become since. Had he really been afraid of them? These men and women who were his sisters and brothers and sons and daughters and comrades and followers and soldiers and above all his friends? Except they hadn't been, not then. They'd been sorted by year and by House, still thought that mattered, sub-sorted into teams and cliques and every other label they'd still believed in, and they'd looked at him with suspicious, innocently cynical eyes and asked him why he thought he could lead them, and he'd had to find the answer within himself.

Because it needed to be done.

Build an army. Face down a nightmare. Destroy a Horcrux. Hunt a friend. Become a hired gun. Become a ghost. Battle hell. Become a knight. Complete a quest. Be seduced by a Goddess. Turn the seasons. Turn back time.

Because even for a boy who had become a man who hadn't wanted anything much from life, it needed to be done. And now, again, it needed to be done. Whether it could be done or he could do it or he even knew the first thing about any of it didn't matter, had never mattered, probably never would matter. It needed to be done, even if he didn't know the details of what _it _would be. It would be what it had always been; the right thing.

Neville shrugged into the obscenity of perfect tailoring, turning to face the mirror with a deep, bracing breath. So this was the newest incarnation of the person he'd never meant to be. The robes fit perfectly, but they still seemed awkwardly someone else's clothing, and he reached out, touching his own fingertips in the mirror as if he could make it real, tracing the reflection of the "W".

He wished more than anything that he could talk to his father. What had he thought when Dumbledore had come to him and Mum with his mad, dangerous plan? Had he been afraid, had he agreed at once, had he needed time? Obviously, he'd done it. Did he ever regret it, either in the months of waiting or the years of after? Would he have done differently if he'd known what it would cost him, but what they would win? And what, now, was going to become of the world they'd given everything to save? He didn't know. Really, though, it didn't matter. It was the same as it had ever been, and in the end, the same as it had been for them.

After all they and he and so many other had given, and for all that he knew it would be more complex than he was even daring to fear, it was so very, very simple. Simple enough, even, for a gardener from the Dales. It needed to be done, and he would do it. He sighed, his reflection showing him the tiniest slip of a smile far too old for twenty-seven.

"DA do whatever it takes."

OOO

The last time Neville had been in the main legislative chamber of the Wizengamot, they had been giving him the Order of Merlin. He had been seventeen, not three days off the battlefield, and what had struck him then through the sore, emotionally dazed, exhausted haze had been the cleanness of it. No blood, no stink, no dust in the air, no flies, everyone smiling, no one screaming. It had seemed surreal, a little vulgar, and though he still had the medal (somewhere) to prove he'd done it, he didn't really remember much of the ceremony itself at all. He certainly didn't remember here nearly as much as he properly should have, given that it was definitely the sort of place that had been fervently designed to be memorable.

The ceiling soared tremendously; vaulted, domed, and buttressed to a height that had to be an illusion considering that they were underground and he would have suspected for an illusion even if they weren't. Paintings of famous figures in magical history battled and discovered and led and martyred between the arches in a style both too elaborate and too somber, as if the artist had been told to re-create Versailles in an alternate universe where no one had ever heard of happiness. Deep wood panels, many seeming to be doors, ringed the walls of the circular chamber, concentric circles of plush seats and gleaming walnut desks surrounding a raised and carved platform in the center of the room.

It was a place meant to inspire, he supposed, but mostly he felt nauseated and more and more convinced by the moment that he had made a terrible mistake. Everything down here was artificial, from the ceiling to the light to the smell of the stale, recirculated air that they'd tried and failed to freshen convincingly, and there was not so much as a potted geranium when he reached out secretly with his deeper senses, searching the cavernous space in vain for some sign of real life.

Oh, there were people plenty, but he was less sure of their reality than that of the paintings above him. A milling, murmuring, mingling, meaningless mass of matching robes and mostly graying heads all sleek, all styled, shining teeth to shining shoes. No one yelled, no one startled, no one laughed too loud or made an inappropriate noise or sprawled anywhere or even so much as sat backwards on a chair. It was as if they had all been choreographed in a dance he hadn't been taught, and Neville lingered by the doorway, honestly beginning to consider whether any of them would even notice if he just left. What was one more purple person anyway?

He had actually taken a step backwards when one of them spotted him; a man graying into his sixties or so, built on the line where his friends called him robust and his enemies fat, with a gloriously curled, waxed, and trimmed beard that reached proudly halfway down his chest. A normal person would have shouted and waved him over, but here it was just an odd finger-waggling gesture that kept the elbow next to the body and everything so very unobtrusive that Neville was surprised to realize that he recognized it meant stay there.

The man had approached him now, and the way he reached out, it was assumed he was offering a handshake. Instead, however, he took Neville's outstretched hand and pressed it between both of his rather than gripping it normally. His hands were warm and soft, moreso than he could remember feeling on an adult, even a woman, though admittedly all of the witches he particular knew worked, fought, or both as hard as any wizard. "Neville Longbottom!" The stranger gushed as if they were long-parted childhood mates. "I'd heard rumors, lad, but I'd not quite believed it…thought maybe you were coming to testify on something, but I suppose I owe Nelson a Galleon, don't I? You're on the Wizengamot now, then?"

"Yes, sir." Neville nodded, not quite certain if that was supposed to be a rhetorical question considering he was not only wearing the same purple robes as everyone else, but had made it through the extremely tight current security to even get to these rooms. He searched the blandly pleasant face closely, hoping that he really had forgotten someone he was supposed to know. "Mr…?"

"Conrad. Chester Conrad. Head of the Magical Imports and Trade Committee." He seemed at once to be confirming something obvious and imparting new and clearly priceless information, but then he stopped himself, patting down the pockets of his own robes to find a quill and a small notepad. "Say, could I ask you a favor?"

Neville stiffened, instantly on his guard. He had been warned over and over how the other MWs would try to get him to do all manor of things, but he hadn't expected it quite this quickly. At the same time, however, he didn't want to make trouble needlessly, and he shifted his weight in discomfort, pushing his own hands deep into his trouser pockets as he shrugged. "I suppose."

Conrad offered the notepad and quill with an almost boyishly hopeful look. "My grandson's in Gryffindor this year. Can't stop talking about how he's in the Big Four's dormitory."

The term was vaguely familiar, something he had a suspicion he'd heard more often than he'd paid any attention. "The Big Four?"

"Potter, Weasley, you and Finnigan." Conrad gave him a knowing wink. "The famous and the infamous, eh?"

"Finnigan's my best friend, Mr. Conrad." He took the notepad, but the quill remained unlinked as he fixed the older man with a stare of frigid rebuke. "Whatever he did later, he was my Lieutenant and a hero and -"

"Yes, yes, of course." A dismissive wave of the hand showed absolutely no sign of caring who had been what, merely at most annoyance that his chummy little jibe had fallen so flat. "Would you mind an autograph, then? Make it out to Ethan?"

"I…" It was far from the first time Neville had been asked for an autograph by some eager-eyed young admirer of the DA or their relatives. While the fawning air of celebrity had never sat well with him, the memory of Colin - obnoxious first impression to heroic last stand - had made him promise himself to be kind to all such fans, and it was for Ethan now that he nodded reluctantly. "All right."

A squeeze to activate the self-inking nib, and he paused only a moment over the inscription, smiling softly to himself. _Congratulations on making Gryffindor, Ethan; may your friends come in every color. Be careful and remember, that castle is a battlefield, respect it accordingly. Neville Longbottom, Cmdr, DA. (Also 3rd bed, lower right post not as strong as it looks)_

"Not five minutes, Chissie, I'm impressed. Already harassing poor Neville about raising tariffs, are we?" Justin had appeared out of seemingly thin air, but he caught Conrad's odd handshake in his own athletic grip, clasping him briefly on the shoulder with the other hand in clearly perfect knowledge of the choreography of this place.

The greetings and jokes were neither, yet they played off one another effortlessly in the empty reply of Conrad's chuckle. "Hardly! Just an autograph for the grandson. The tariffs can wait until he joins me for lunch. You will, of course, won't you, Neville?"

"He'll be dining with me." Justin had slipped alongside him now, and there was a tremendous surge of relief at the tiny double-squeeze and the tap of two fingers against the back of his shoulder. Auror hand signals for blind and silent operation. _Follow me._ The smile that accompanied the wonderfully simple instructions had at least fifteen layers directed at Conrad, none of which seemed like anything one would normally smile about. "I do insist. His wife and I were mates at school, he can't refuse me."

Neville returned the autograph with a helpless little gesture. "I really can't."

Victory conceded - for now - in a friendly bow that cut just a bit too briskly. "A delay on that spell, then. But I will have you within the week!"

Conrad vanished smoothly back into the purple throng, but Justin already had his elbow, tucking them in as close to one another as gossiping schoolgirls as he guided Neville along the edge of the chamber. "Of course he will. And if you're smart, you won't sign a bloody thing he puts in front of you. His bills carry more riders than Ascot."

Neville frowned, searching his memory of his recent lessons and general wizarding civics lessons with growing futility. "Riders?"

It stopped Justin in mid-stride, even if only for a moment, and the horror in his voice was not entirely feigned as he shook his head incredulously. "Oh, God, my poor little babe in the woods, what has Malfoy been teaching you?"

"As much as he can," he retorted defensively, "but we've been busy, Justin, you know that."

"Yes, yes, but we're going to have to remedy that." Justin took a deep breath, his grey eyes darting around them quickly before he dropped his voice as if they were discussing something of the deepest confidentiality. "A rider is a section attached to a bill to ease through a bit of legislation that would either be too minute to be worth its own, or would never get passed unless it was stuck to something that's a guarantee."

"I don't -"

"I'm on the Committee for Registration of Magical Creatures. Everything from the more Hagridish sort of exotic pets to Animagi. Let's say I'd like to have snakes added to the registry list because I fancy they're a good way to sniff out dark wizards."

He wasn't sure how much of this was true and how much had been made up for the sake of the example, nor did he know whether he was supposed to challenge or just smile and nod, but Neville decided to err on the side of thinking, whether or not that was wise in this place. "But that's not true, I know several people who -"

"Not the point, Neville." The patronizing sigh Justin cast him now would have gotten him punched by Hannah, but he lacked either the authority of such intimate friendship or the surety of how the onlookers would take such a thing. "Let's just say I want that. It would get shot down, of course, and you've given at least one bloody good reason why. But if someone's got a bill that will put harsher penalties on the types of kiddy-fiddling perverts Ron was running down, and I promise I'll vote for it if they attach my paragraph on snake registry, I've just floated a rider and now my impossible legislation's more or less a done deal. And if he doesn't take my rider and enough people don't play along, he becomes known as the one who couldn't even pass a child porn bill."

By this time, he'd heard of quite a few political dirty tricks, but there was something about this one that struck him as particularly underhanded, and he couldn't keep the disbelief from showing. "That's not fair."

"Of course it's not. But you really might as well knock those words from your vocabulary." They had made their way about halfway around the chamber, and Justin waved a hand expansively at the rest. "Let me show you around a bit. At least then you'll not be wandering like a naked drunk girl in Portsmouth with the Navy in."

For the first time, the tease was genuine, nothing more complicated than friendship, and Neville raised an eyebrow curiously. "Am I that bad?"

"A bit less likely to wind up pregnant, perhaps," Justin conceded, "but just as likely to be very unpleasantly fucked, if you will pardonnez mon Francais. Look about. Everyone here would currently sell their grandmother's honor for a single photo looking chummy with you."

Now that it was pointed out, he could see what he'd been trying not to; the number of people so deliberately minding their own business and ever so deeply absorbed in their conversations who had nevertheless not lost sight of exactly where he was and to whom he was talking for a moment. "I still don't understand that. I'm one vote. I've been reminded of that often enough. And even if I'm popular with some people, most of the Wizengamot isn't even elected!"

Justin made a tutting noise, wagging a finger at him. "Ah, but they can't pass wind without the ones who are, and you're sweet as sugared gold to those, while to the lifeys, being seen with you suggests that it's good business to be tight with them for the elects."

Neville shoved his fists into his pockets again, feeling horribly like he was very young and back at school again, back to the years when he had sworn everyone was always watching, judging, measuring him up against a standard he could never hope to meet and giggling behind their hands at every inadequacy. His face was hot, and he wished he could curl forward again in the slouching, hiding huddle that had seen him through that phase of his life. "I hate this already. I wish I'd just sold a kidney."

"I don't think that's legal, old friend." The words were light, but the tone held nothing but genuine sympathy, mirrored clearly in Justin's eyes, and he was reminded yet again that for all that he hated the trappings and affectations of status, the man beneath them was a good one and a dear friend. And sometimes, like now, you could catch a glimpse of something twice as fleeting as a shooting star that hinted that maybe, that good man disliked his own exterior as much as if not more than anyone else.

It was to that man he appealed now, trying thinly to make a joke of it. "Couldn't I just attach a rider and make it legal, then get out of here?"

What allowed it, he couldn't know, but rather than flicking gone instantly, the shell actually fell away entirely for a moment, and Neville was surprised to see how easily Justin could have passed for a fit forty without the bisque masks of feigned emotions and the plumb line posture. His voice was quiet, an unbelievable hint of Nottingham tarnishing the usually impeccable RP. "Not quite yet. Perhaps later."

And then it was gone and he was in the company of Lord Ogilvy - or MW Finch-Fletchley or whatever title he was preferring at the moment - who was sweeping them elegantly out the nearest set of double doors and into a maze of hallways beyond, moving with a smooth but efficiently brisk glide across the polished and inlaid floors. "Now, obviously, that was the main chamber. The washrooms are here, but it's bad form to talk business in there. Not that people don't. Senior members and Committee chairs have their offices down that corridor, you know the Criminal Proceedings Chamber quite well, those are deposition chambers where the committees meet and we've all testified, and in here is the canteen and lounge, which is of course where most of the business actually happens."

The phrase 'canteen and lounge' summoned the image of what they had down in the DMLE; an assortment of a dozen institutional tables and folding chairs under utilitarian glowing balls of light, a table to one side of the room holding crisps and sagging sandwiches and a few charmed stainless steel trays of hot something squishy while another table held the tea urn, some ancient gummy bottles of mustard and brown sauce, and the plastic cutlery in perforated baskets. This was not a canteen or lounge. This was a restaurant, and a bloody nice one, far above the caliber of the Leaky at its best. Here, the lighting was crystal chandeliers, the menus were in lovely little leather booklets, the china eggshell and the silver real, and garnish meant a cunning little swan crafted from a glistening strawberry and flapping its wings, not a wedge of lemon or a shake of ancient pepper that might as well have been dust.

A dessert went by on fire on purpose, and Neville took a nervous step back, dropping his voice to a heated whisper that was as quiet as he possibly could while still hoping Justin could hear. "I can't afford this."

The look he got in return was not the usual one of their wealthy friend suddenly remembering the gulf between their finances. "What are you on about? It's provided."

"Justin," he protested urgently, nodding his head towards the luncheon being delivered to the nearest table, "that looks like lobster."

"Norwegian." Justin shrugged dismissively. "Not nearly as good as the ones from Maine, in my opinion."

He knew, he really did know that Justin wasn't trying to be difficult, but the whole thing was so absurd that Neville couldn't keep his voice from raising just a little bit. "I don't care of it's from Switzerland, that's not the point!"

"It'd be bloody hard to get a mountain climbing lobster."

Ok, that was him being difficult. "Justin -"

"Do not make a scene. Come here. Sit down." Chastened, Neville allowed himself to be escorted to a small booth in the furthest corner of the dining room. They had been seated less than a minute when a waitress appeared at Justin's elbow. Her dress robes were almost as expensive as Neville's own, and she was as blandly pretty as a fashion model, so obsequiously attentive and well-mannered that he was disturbingly reminded of the concept of a Geisha. "What may I get for you gentlemen?"

Justin was clearly accustomed to such service to the point of boredom, and he didn't look up from the framed and hand-lettered copy of the day's specials. "Tea, please."

"Anything else?"

He set aside the specials with a shake of his head, handing it off to her along with both menus and the complete return of the politician's smile. "Just one of those darling little plates of cheese and biscuits, thank you."

Neville waited until she was gone, folding his arms stubbornly and fixing Justin with a glare that was the better part of an entire lecture. "I'm not hungry."

Admittedly, he wasn't completely sure what he'd expected as a reaction, but none at all hadn't been one of them. The tea appeared before them with two barely audible pops, steaming, perfectly mashed, and already prepared. Justin took a deep sip of his, scarcely bothering to raise his eyes lazily over the beautifully painted rim. "Don't be a child."

"I'm not being a child, Justin," Neville refused to be talked down when he knew with a certainty that was increasing by the moment and every forkful of tenderloin and frenched lamb surrounding him . He plucked at his robes with the tips of his fingers as though something revolting had spilled on them. "I was disgusted by these, but all of this…I feel sick. Physically sick. No bloody wonder the government is running out of money! Do you think I eat lobster when my family can't pay the bills? I don't care how posh these people are; if they're cutting pensions on disabled soldiers, they can be eating tinned beans off paper plates in civilian clothes the same as Ricky does and not paying themselves fifteen thousand Galleons a year!"

It wasn't exactly loud enough to draw attention, even from the people pretending they weren't already looking, but it was close enough to a rant to feel good. He was right, damn it, and Justin could at least do him the courtesy of blinking. Instead, he took another sip of tea. "Are you quite done?"

"No," Neville admitted bluntly, "but I think you've got the gist, and if I keep going, I'll lose my temper."

"I have three reasons for you." He paused as the waitress returned with a plate of a half-dozen little pastries too elegantly wrought to really be biscuits and flanked by an equal number of small triangles of assorted cheeses. "Two you want to hear, because you've already decided them, and one that you won't, even though you already know it."

Neville shook his head, refusing the shortbreadish little something with the sugar threads and the whole candied raspberry on top. "I don't see the reasons being good enough."

"The first, of course," There was no indication that Neville had even spoken, the pauses only for tea, though even through his frustration, he couldn't help but make a note that Justin was on his second cup of tea and had already drained his water glass. "Is that people won't ever vote less for themselves."

"Funny, I know roughly eighty kids who were unanimous about giving up everything."

"And if that were normal," Justin sighed, "most people wouldn't call you heroes in the same tone the rest call you idiots. Do bear with me." The plate was offered again, and Neville relented, taking a triangle of cheese in the desire not to seem petty. "The second is that there is a lot of old money in here. They're out of touch, and I'm the first to admit that. It just doesn't occur to them to do any of what you're suggesting, because they've never seen a tinned bean in their lives. As far as they're concerned, the lobster isn't from Maine and doesn't come with caviar, so they're just shy of eating gruel."

"You're right about already having figured that out, but hearing you confirm it is still not making me feel better." He had chosen the simplest-looking cheese on the plate, but it crumbled apart in his mouth, a cheddar at least five years old, both deeply creamy and bitingly sharp, heavy with little crystals and the taste of mushrooms and honey. It nearly made him sob, not from how good it was, but how much he knew damned well that sort of thing cost. He waved away another. "I'm sorry, but neither are these."

At last he had succeeded in drawing open frustration from Justin, however slight, yet it did not feel at all like a victory. "Yes, well, enjoy them, because those little dainties and your High Street robes and the mahogany paneling are more or less all that's holding this world together."

A comeback was on the tip of his tongue, but Neville stopped himself, remembering that first and foremost, this man was trying to help him. "Is this supposed to be the one I don't want to hear?"

"It's a show, Neville, and believe it or not, it's cheap for what it does." The chinks in the armor were there again, and he hadn't seen them so obvious nor so close together since '98, though he decided not to say anything just yet. However it came about, real honesty was a rare enough commodity from this man. "You have no idea of the scale of money a government deals in. I fly an airplane on the other side that's 16 million pounds, and it's a drop in the bucket of a single agency. If we cut every corner we could here, we could maybe fund the DMLE for an extra six months, but then what?"

"At least people would see that you were taking their problems seriously," He prodded gently, wanting to both keep him talking and get answers to his genuine issues. "If they have to tighten their belts, so ought we."

"Oh, they'd see. Bless me, they'd see." He giggled under his breath, and the cheese seemed to curdle in Neville's stomach at the sound of a child who has just found out that kitties can burn. "Right now, they have a vague idea that 'things are bad.' If we started running about in track suits and eating pot noodle, they'd suddenly all think the government was on the very edge of collapse."

Neville broke the wing off a chocolate angel atop a caramel wafer, then shivered and stuck it back on when the angel turned to reach its confectionary hands to him plaintively. "If you're going to suggest the whole riots in the streets bollocks -"

"There is a pub across the road from yours." And again Justin was perfectly back in control, the hints of other all the more disconcerting for their brevity. He was also on his third cup of tea. "The ale is just as good, the proprietess just as lovely, her neckline cut just as low, and the prices a fair sight lower because you're not paying for the luxury of carrying your wand. And the only thing keeping everyone from realizing that is they are set in how things are. Suddenly make them question, make them fear, and they'll all start seeing that they don't need the wizarding world half as much as they think they do. They'll start spending their money elsewhere, even living out there entirely, getting Muggle jobs, and then it's all over."

"Isn't that what you want, though?" He frowned in genuine confusion. "Unification?"

"Unification, not collapse. " Justin corrected him, stern but so implacable he seemed to be almost overcompensating for his previous lapse. "We still need the magical government, Neville. There needs to be a school where lads like you and I learn not to blow up our aunts when we get angry, people like Harry who can catch criminals who use wands instead of knives, and all these people who do have real expertise in the very unique concerns that are brought about by a population who can do what we can do. Unification would mean adapting these things to function without hiding, but if everyone just leaves, we're, to put it bluntly, utterly screwed. So the bread and circuses must remain intact, at least until we can sort something out."

"Because Merlin forbid people actually know the truth."

"Frankly, yes."

He wanted to throw back a rebuttal at once, he hated the concept of it, but Neville forced himself to stop and actually think, actually listen. Usually, he wasn't one of the more hot-headed among his lot, but every man had buttons, and two of his were definitely being pressed here; lack of common sense and hurting his DA. It made it easy to be angry, to decry it as wrong, but he could almost hear Draco's voice, so real that he wouldn't have been surprised in the least to find him at the next table. _If it seems easy enough for our children to understand and it's political, you're missing something, and it probably bites._

Carefully, he turned the thought over in his head, examining it from every angle and plucking out the inflammatory and accusatory as much as he could before offering it tentatively. "You could be honest with people, you know. Tell them what you just told me. I'm one of those public folk myself, and I haven't panicked and run off to go live in the Muggle world."

"And some wouldn't." Justin seemed whatever non-emotion passed for impressed, nodding once in agreement. "And others will outright go hysterical, and more will decide that the Muggle world is best for them, personally, and someone else can go on patronizing wizarding businesses and working for the Ministry and paying taxes to us, and right now we're bleeding too badly to take another cut."

Neville picked up the entire caramel wafer with the chocolate angel, turning it slowly to admire the precision detailing of the feathers, the strands of hair. It preened rather vainly under his gaze, and he found himself smiling a little and wishing he could take it home to Hannah. "So what you're telling me is that the lobster is more than paying for itself in revenue not lost through people panicking?"

"Right on."

Again, he let himself consider it, setting down the biscuit and giving a long, hard look around the dining room before he made his decision. "I think that's full of shit."

"Certainly." Justin agreed without skipping a beat, then shrugged gracefully. "But so is the world, so are people, and so is politics."

That particular brand of casual cynicism seemed too familiar , and his eyes narrowed, trying to recall if dry mouth or thirst was a sign of Polyjuice and whether he had seen anyone that day on the youthful side of the delicate line between platinum blonde and white. "You didn't used to think about the world that way, Justin. That's something I'd have expected from Draco."

"There's a difference between what Justin thinks philosophically, what Lord Ogilvy opines wittily in polite society, what the head of the Unification Party holds strategically true, and what keeps Auror Finch-Fletchley alive on the streets." There was no sense of guilt or shame in the admission. "You're going to be living three lives now, Neville, you need to learn what you believe where."

He shook his head, well aware that he could never achieve this level of social delicacy. "I'm not like that."

"Yes you are. I've seen it." Justin leaned back slightly against the rich, buttery leather, gesturing with the chocolate angel. "The Commander made sure his old Second Lieutenant was in battle position before we went into that clearing, and you kissed your wife like I've rarely seen when the odd bit happened not a minute later."

Well, that confirmed who he was at least. No self-respecting Slytherin would have gotten anywhere near that mess from the attacking side, not to mention Draco's well-known pyrophobia. The angel was gone now, and Neville looked down at the plate, tracing the ivy pattern on the edge and wishing it were real.

Not to mention that he had a point. He had learned to split himself, like it or not, but that was different, less a set of masks and more a simple switch on his emotions that allowed him to disconnect when he didn't have the luxury of a heart. "I think I can be that easier than I can be this…this…I don't even know what it is, but it scares me and confuses me and I don't like it and it's foppish and slimy and not honest, and I don't think I can even pass as those things if I really did try." Neville tried to ease the refusal with a self-effacing smile, spreading his hands palms up across the gleaming tabletop in all their thick calluses and cracked nails and so many scars. "Look at me, Justin. Look at my hands. I can carry a wand, a sword, a shovel, even a child, but I'd look absurd with my pinky out while I sipped tea. More than Ernie, even. At least he wanted to belong to this world."

"That's all right." Justin reached out, taking his hands and turning them palms down, folded over each other with an unexpected gentleness. "It's fine that you're not posh. That's not the important part. The important part is that you don't get up at arms about those who are, or how things work here, and you stick with me and as much as I'm loathe to say it, Draco when I'm not here. You accept what you don't know, and you don't start some self-destructive crusade."

Neville raised an eyebrow, not entirely sure where exactly the line of joking or not lay on this one. "You make it seem like I'm going to stage a coup."

"I make it seem like you've just started your first day and were all ready to strip it to bare walls." He started in on another cup of tea. His fourth or fifth? Neville was no longer sure. "What do you think would happen if you did that to the Leaky?"

"Our customers would decide we were failing and…" He had started to answer automatically, but he trailed off, his eyes widening as it all clicked into place. The answer to why lobster but no pensions was the same reason there were still paper umbrellas in the tropical drinks even when they were arguing the gas bill. Rats and sinking ships had nothing on customers and failing business. Or perhaps citizens and failing government. Very slowly, he nodded, looking at Justin with fresh eyes that were a little afraid of what new and cynical reality he would encounter next. "I see what you mean."

"We're not all fools here, Neville. You need to realize that if nothing else. Don't underestimate the people in power." Justin looked around again, then shifted subtly so that his left hand could not be viewed from the dining room as he took a small silver flask from his pocket and added a generous amount of the contents to his tea.

Neville nearly spat his own tea in shock, only catching himself at the last moment to keep the reaction from being noticeable to others as he leaned forward, the need to maintain a whisper turning the question into a hiss. "WHAT is that?"

There was, remarkably, no look of guilt or even simple embarrassment. "That, Commander, is Churchill Tea."

"Churchill -"

"Gin, silly. It's gin. I've brought my own because I don't trust anyone to make my drinks, and this came from a sealed bottle I bought at a random store this morning." His chin lifted a fraction of an inch in a blatant dare. "I am not a drunkard, before you begin posturing. However, I do not want people wondering, and I require a reasonably strong countermeasure or I'm going to start having arrhythmia again from all the stimulants."

Neville knew just how thin this ice was, but the thought of Ricky was too fresh in his mind to keep it from being an open plea. "Justin, don't do this to yourself. If you're taking stimulants again -"

"I sit in Parliament. On four committees. One of which I am endeavoring to maintain in a state of Not Bombing Us. I am running a household. A society household. I am managing my stables. I am a commissioned Flight Lieutenant in the RAF. I am an Auror working on a serial killer who is making their way through what is for all intents and purposes my sister's family like a scythe, and I also happen to have another eensy little full time job on the side in the Wizengamot and as the leader of a political party here. And of course in the mean time my mother, God bless the darling tatted cunt, is trying to set me up with an assortment of women. There will be caffeine in unholy quantities if you want me to stay rational, there will be Ritalin, and Gin, and there will be not another word on it. Understood?"

He didn't know really why he agreed other than that something in Justin's tone left him no other option. Maybe that's what they meant when they talked about born to status; that you could say something that blind daft and people would simply accept it. Because he did. He fidgeted for a moment with a crumb of bleu cheese, pressing it into a painted loop of ivy as he cleared his throat. "So what do we do?"

"In terms of what?"

"Today." Neville repeated the double tap of the two fingers on the tabletop, reminding his friend of the previous instructions. "If I'm following your lead, what do we do today?"

To his credit, Justin slipped as seamlessly as ever from one topic to the next, clearing away the now empty plate with a passing swish of his wand. "I introduce you to everyone. The MW from Birmingham will be making a speech about magical prisoners in the People's Republic of China. You will congratulate him and say it was excellent, no matter what. There will be a vote on approval of re-zoning additional commercial real estate in Hogsmeade. You will vote yes, because you will not mark yourself as contentious immediately. And I will ask one more favor of you personally."

After everything, it shouldn't have given him pause, or maybe it should have scared him to death, but the reality settled somewhere vigilantly in between. "What's that?"

"Watch my back, Neville." The request came with another deep pull from the well-spiked tea, but there was no fear, only practicality in the steel grey eyes as he gestured with the briefly empty cup. "I know I'm supposed to be safe in here and that Harry has a detail waiting for the moment I'm outside these chambers, but I know the scroll came last night and that I'm bait, and I don't much want to die just yet. If the Nevermore is in here, don't let him have me."

It could have so easily seemed like begging, the child afraid of the boogie man, but it was no chemical that stripped that expectation away and replaced it with icy pragmatism. He had heard Hannah remark on it before he had deployed to Afghanistan, but now he could see it for himself, and it was a little worrisome. The thread-thin silvery lines in their expertly laser-reduced web over the side of his face were not his only mementos of having fought the literal hounds of hell. He was completely and utterly unafraid of death; he simply could not tolerate the inconvenience it would mean to his schedule.

There was, at the same time, no question as to the answer itself, and Neville shook Justin's hand, his eyes locking the other man's to give weight to the answer that was really a promise. "You can count on me."

"Oh, my dear friend, I've known that longer than you have." It could have, should have so easily been so patronizing, but it wasn't. It was merely a simple statement of fact no more questionable than the Earth's rotation around the sun, and yet that made it all the more disconcerting as he continued. "But there's one mistake you've made as long as I've known you, you're making it still, and it's the only thing that truly worries me about you."

He had absolutely no idea what it could be, and despite the cleverly constructed booth designed to provide maximum tasteful privacy, he felt terribly vulnerable and exposed, pulling in a deep, wavering breath before managing to ask. "And that is?"

"You underestimate yourself. And you've got to stop doing that, because no one else does. I see it in your eyes right now." Justin made it a challenge, his mimicry of the Yorkshire only just barely not an insult or mockery. "'I'm nothing special. I'm just a simple gardener."

"But I am…or I'm not." He was flustered, and he hated that, trying to at once argue and end the topic and failing at both. "You know what I mean!"

"You want to believe that. It makes you feel safer, because the truth is too frightening, but damned if you're a coward, and you've got to face it eventually." Neville felt like a specimen under that collected gaze, seeing now the same hint of a smile that Ron got when he was looking at the board and seeing Checkmate ten moves ahead of anything you'd even thought of. "You're a man of incredible power," Justin continued, "not just in your influence, but in those hard hands you showed me and all that runs through them in every way, and in more strength and courage and intelligence than you've ever credited yourself. You're a hero, a leader, and just a bit of a saint, and until you realize that, own it, and use it, you will continue to blunt your own wand and we will all be a bit the worse for it."

"Justin, I'm not…I can't -"

"Maybe not today. But soon, Neville." He had never thought it was possible to hear such imperative completely devoid of fear, panic, or indiscretion. "Please, you must. For all our sakes. Because until men like you are willing to admit to what they are, we're all at the mercy of those who are more than happy to claim not only their own power, but that to which they have no right."

He knew what Justin wanted, and he wished he could give it, could be the person that his friend thought he was, even as he tried to ignore the worried voice that wondered if he had come by these impossible expectations via Hannah. "You're asking too much of me."

"No, I'm not." He drained the last of the tea, offering the empty cup in a genteel toast to his own assurance. "And someday, my humble Dales friend, you will see what the rest of us do, and on that day, may the good Lord have mercy on the darkness."

OOO

The purple robes came off the instant he was through the door of Zach's house, refused a position on the coat rack with the other uniforms and instead dumped, kicked, and effectively hidden on the floor behind. He wanted to grab his Auror's uniform off the rack, as if he could replace the day as easily as clothing, but everyone else he knew would be in shirtsleeves, so he suppressed the childish impulse, though he half-jogged down the hall to the New RoR.

The casual air with which his colleagues were draped around the furniture was like a welcome in and of itself, even though he knew they were there for business, and Ron offered him a bottle of cider, the cap already off. "So, how was the first day at the Wizengamot?"

"He didn't kill anyone." Neville turned to see Justin entering the room behind him, his own robes already discarded and a heavy canvas knapsack over one shoulder.

Zach laughed, shaking his head in wonder. "Is that really the best thing that can be said for the day?"

"Yes." Justin paused as he opened the knapsack, pulling out a wad of cloth in mottled greens and browns. "He also signed a couple of autographs for children. That was a positive."

"I hate it." Neville paused, draining half the cider before shaking his head. "No, that's not a strong enough word. I -"

"Loathe?" Tony suggested. "Despise. Abhor. Detest. Abominate. Revile. That good, or still looking?"

"Thank you, walking thesaurus." Demmy rolled her eyes, but Tony didn't appear at all embarrassed, tipping his mug of tea to her in salute.

"Ravenclaw."

Demmy snorted sarcastically, making a face at him. "Don't remind us."

"Don't need to."

Brian was grinning from ear to ear as he took Neville's now-empty bottle, replacing it with a full one. "I knew there was some good t'ya, Peeler."

Justin had stripped to his vest and shorts now, and he frowned as he looked around the room, seeing the chalkboard and pile of papers near Harry. "Did we miss anything?"

"Twenty-four hours and nothing." The frustration in Ron's voice bordered on a growl, and he flicked the cap of Neville's cider at the bin with the force of a weapon. "Not a fucking spark. It's -"

"No," Harry interrupted, but there was genuine enthusiasm rather than appeasement in his tone. "This is good."

"Under what hex, Harry?" Ron retorted. "If the Nevermore hasn't struck, he's either on to us, which means they know a lot more than I'm personally comfortable with, or he's in the Loch, which I am _definitely _not personally comfortable with, or in this room, in which case I think I might just jump off Tower Bridge."

"Stop it. You're jumping to conclusions, and you're panicking." Harry stood, his hands moving from his pockets to run through his hair and back again as he paced, his eyes bright. "I said this was good, and I mean it. This entire case, we've been desperately playing catch-up to the point I've had to mandate sleep. We've been reacting, not acting, always two steps behind, but they've made a mistake now. We've got a chance to actually breathe."

"Not to mention how much of our other load is off." Zach agreed. "I don't know if it's been adrenaline or fresh eyes or what, but Neville and Tony with Rosier, Ron with that pervert and his mates, Demmy's banknote forger in Wiltshire…we're looking at almost a clean docket for the first time since I joined the unit."

Justin had unfolded the mottled cloth and donned a pair of trousers studded liberally with large pockets, and he was buttoning into a matching light jacket with _Royal Air Force_ embroidered on a patch over the right breast. "Except that little issue of the Nevermore and the diaries."

"Any chance that any of the other cases are connected?" Sally-Anne asked thoughtfully, chewing on the end of a quill so battered that it was barely recognizable as a feather. "Maybe as a diversion?"

"Not really." Zach shrugged. "Some of them have been months on our docket, and the rest are so disconnected that it would be a ridiculous level of conspiracy. I mean it's _possible_, but tremendously unlikely."

Harry had stopped his pacing, his expression unreadable as he watched Justin finish buttoning his jacket and sit to pull on a pair of tall, heavy-soled black boots. "Hyperbole aside, how unlikely?"

Justin considered it for several seconds as he tightened the laces, then chuckled. "Granted, I'm sitting here as a confidant of HRH and crack fighter pilot who is secretly a wizard police officer in a double life, but I think what Zach is talking about is over the top even for this mad universe we live in. David Icke levels of mental."

"Quite." Tony nodded, motioning at the stack of paperwork that Neville now saw was topped with their own report from Rosier's interrogation. "More it's that the rest of Britain just didn't decide to become law-abiding saints because someone was _really _naughty."

Harry gave a quick, curt nod, brushing his hands together as if to physically rid himself of the discarded idea before plucking a piece of chalk from behind his ear. "So it's all eyes on the prize now. We've got the time, let's use it. A lot of our old theories have fallen apart as we've gotten new evidence…or mostly, new victims." He pulled the chalkboard - obviously originally the property of the Smith children with the alphabet stenciled cheerfully across the top - to him, quickly writing _Nevermore 26-5-08_ across the top. "We start from scratch, go back over this thing, look at every piece we've got and every idea we can come up with."

"Harry," Justin cleared his throat politely, fully dressed now as he tapped his wristwatch. "I have exactly forty-eight more minutes I can give you, and that's it."

"Well, start with the victims, then." Demmy suggested pragmatically.

"In order, Augusta Longbottom, Rita Skeeter, Hestia Jones, Alice and Frank Longbottom, Kingsley Shacklebolt, then Arthur Weasley, with an attempt on Molly Weasley." Harry wrote the names as he spoke, and there was something about seeing his own name repeated down the litany that tightened something cold and angry in Neville's stomach and made him wish that one cider could have blunted it at least a little. "Eight so far. Let's get some patterns, people?"

Sally-Anne tilted her head, the end of her wand burping little multi-colored sparks as she tapped it absently against her knee. "Does Doge go on that list?"

Harry shook his head. "Natural causes."

Justin took a spot on the couch next to him, his hand hovering wistfully over the bottles of ale and cider for a few seconds before settling on the steaming teapot and pouring himself a cup. "How sure are we?"

"His nurse said she's been expecting it for weeks now." Zach offered. "He's been having increasing congestive heart failure. And there's that one hundred and seventeen years old bit."

Justin did not seem satisfied, narrowing his eyes suspiciously at his former roommate. "Did we do an autopsy?"

Zach started to reply, then stopped, finding the report in the pile and double-checking it first. "No, he didn't want one, and we didn't have cause to override."

"All right." Justin leaned back, apparently satisfied…or at least willing to let it go. "We'll take that one at face value for now, exhume if we have to. Back to the ones we know."

"Age." Ron suggested. "They're all over fifty."

Demmy raised her hand. "Timing with the scrolls."

"Timing with Neville being visible."

"MO. Clean AKs."

"No sign of forced entry, no struggle."

"All closely associated with Dumbledore. Seven Order members and his biographer."

"Hermione."

The points had been coming faster than Harry could write them, but at Tony's proposal, the chalk froze, and he didn't seem to notice that he snapped it as he whirled, jabbing the small, broken stub at the other man angrily. "No. She's not a suspect."

Once, the furious warning in Harry's snapped rebuttal would have shut Tony up for at least an hour, if not had him curled up in a ball of apology, but Neville was proud and a little surprise to see that he didn't even flinch. "She's at least a person of interest."

"I said no."

Brian cut in, the unmistakable voice of been there, seen more than he'd ever wanted to giving him the confidence to reach out and place a subduing hand on his superior's shoulder. "Harry, lad, she's definitely recent at the scene for six, no alibi for the other two."

"I'd suggest myself under a curse first." Harry shrugged the hand away forcefully, the little piece of chalk shattering uselessly into fine white crumbs on the carpet, his color rising. "If there's one person I trust in this world, it's her. She's the only person who has never, ever let me down. I'd trust her over my own wife if it came right down to it. She's not our killer."

Neville took a deep breath, knowing too well both how hard this was and yet the strength of the points that were being made by the others. "Harry…."

"Let's look at what we _do _have on the Nevermore." Harry ignored him completely, raising his voice and taking another piece of chalk from the packet to resume writing on the board. The message was clear, and the rest of them exchanged looks behind his back, reaching the silent conclusion that it was best left alone. For now. "Magical. Skilled, powerful, experienced. Someone known to and trusted by all of our victims. According to Hermione slightly built, height between five three and five six."

Demmy pushed off her shoes, sliding off the armchair to prop her feet up on the cushion as she stared at the ceiling as if the face of their suspect could be found in the patterns of the ceiling. "A woman or a small man, then."

Ron took a deep breath, rubbing at the ligature scars that circled his wrists and licking his lips in such obvious reluctance that Neville was certain he was going to go back to Hermione, and the actual name he whispered came as a shock. "Finnigan."

"He's got an alibi for at least three," Neville argued immediately. "Rock-solid."

"He's also slippery as a bucket of eels, a known killer, and five three." The awareness of his debt was clear in Ron's eyes, but so was the stubbornness for which he had long been known, and there was some small comfort in that he could see how much this accusation was costing.

Harry had already marked down the name. "He goes on the list then, at least for now."

"If you can knock Hermione on trust, I can strike Finnigan." Neville crossed his arms, refusing to release Ron from eye contact. The majority of the time, he was glad that most of them had no memories of what could have been, but he wasn't about to let this go just because he was the only one who knew how not just incorrect, but damned wrong the theory was.

"Neville, I know your feelings on this matter," Zach said gently, "but he does have a record."

"It wasn't clean Aks." Neville made a deliberately ugly slashing gesture with his wand across Zach's torso, though he was careful to hold it with the handle's sensitive conductor free of the hot spots on his palm. "For Merlin's sake, those were anything _but _clean. I've never seen him pull one, and I don't think he could. He's too passionate. When he gets angry enough to kill, he's…" he hesitated, then realized that sparing the truth would defeat the purpose. "I hate to say it, but he's damned barbaric. He makes a mess and a statement."

"Neville's right, it don't fit t'pattern." While Brian's allegiance was not unexpected, his tone was not that of a friend - which, now that he thought about it, he wasn't even sure he and Seamus ever had been - but that of someone who knew more about the workings of those dark events than any of them. "Don't fit t'Nevermore, and it don't fit _him_. He's right; Slaugh'll make ya more new arseholes than a Bangkok brothel, but if he's gonna kill he don't do cool, and he don't think o' hisself. Ain't none of us'd be here if he did."

An uncomfortably mortal silence lingered after his pronouncement, but Tony had already gone back to staring at the board, fingers steepled, and it was impossible to tell if he was talking to the rest of them or to himself. "A lot of things don't fit the pattern of a traditional serial killer. No trophies taken, no mutilation of the victims, no notes, nothing left at the scene, no ritualism, no surrogacy indicated in type, no torture, no sign of sexual gratification…."

"So all the Nevermore wants is them dead." Sally-Anne said. "It's utilitarian. AK is just a guarantee where something like poison might fail, but there's no desire for anything beyond the death itself. There's no rectification behavior like closing eyes or repositioning the bodies, but there's still indications of respect for the victims."

Zach raised an eyebrow skeptically. "Not torturing someone isn't respect."

"Autopsy on Kingsley," Sally-Anne tossed the packet across at him. "Check the cavity results."

"I'm not finding anything inserted."

"No, but he was missing two teeth. That's not our killer, that's thirty years of being in our job, but the amount of tea in the pockets, how little it was mixed with saliva, and no other food particles indicates that he had just taken a mouthful when he was killed. But here, you'll see his fingerprints are only on the handle of the mug, not the spoon or anywhere else on the mug."

Zach blinked in slightly stunned respect. "Our killer made him a cuppa."

"Which he drank." Demmy had taken the report, checking the data for herself. "And wore gloves. So it's also someone who wouldn't arouse suspicion in wearing gloves indoors."

"Brilliant, Saz," Harry grinned. "Now we're going in the right direction. Let's try to get in the bastard's head. Why were they killed?"

"They weren't just killed," Neville pointed out, and now he did open the second cider. "They were silenced. Frank and Alice weren't targeted until she started communicating." He could see the few curious looks at his use of their first names, but thankfully no one questioned him on it. Justin was right; he could separate and do this, but not if he called them Mum and Dad.

"Augusta had been approached the night before. Rita was nosing around everywhere for another book. Hestia had an appointment to come back to the Aurors later that day." Justin had turned on his Blackberry, doing something with the stylus that made the screen flicker. "We just covered Frank and Alice."

"Kingsley had gotten -"

Justin almost dropped the little device, his hand darting out to catch Harry's shoulder, his eyes shivering back and forth across the line between perfectly reasonable and panicked. "Harry, please…"

He did not drop it, but he paused, and it was clear that he rephrased what he had meant to say. "Notice that Justin had made contact with some highly placed members of the Muggle government which might be relevant to Unification." It wasn't what Justin had wanted, but it was apparently enough, and the hand came down, dropping behind his back to clasp his other wrist in military ease as he took a step away.

"I'd been pumping Mum and Dad pretty hard about the first war to try and decode the diaries."

"And our bait's gone untaken." Demmy mused. "Whoever it is knows what we're doing."

Tony was visibly tensed, as if expecting a blow, but his voice was reasonable, even gentle. "The only person I'm seeing who fits this is Hermione."

"We're not doing this again." Harry snapped. "She has no motive, for one."

"Whoever this is, they don't want us knowing something from the era of the diaries. That's 1980-1981 so far." Justin changed the subject with calming, practiced grace, his smile that of the eminent diplomat. "Tony, where do we stand on those?"

There was a pause in which no one could tell if he was going to accept the diversion, but at last the iron set of his shoulders eased, though the look of unsettled distaste that replaced the confrontation was no more comfort. "In some frightening black waters, I'm afraid."

His voice made Demmy sit up, twisting onto one elbow to face him with a worried frown. "That's…not good."

"Aye," Brian scoffed, "but what does it _mean_?"

"I took Seamus up on his offer and got the diary samples DNA typed. We have a match." Tony paused, letting the news sink in a little before he went on, though it was clear that this was the first time he'd said the discovery out loud, and he seemed as alarmed as anyone else. "There's no longer any question that they're the originals, which opens up a lot of very worrisome things in the area of Necromancy."

There was no hiding that Harry was rattled, but to his credit, he had been dealing with the unpleasant unexpected since the age of eleven, and it was impressive to watch how quickly he absorbed and accepted the information and moved on. "Could we be looking at Infiri?"

"The bodies were destroyed." There was a confident finality to the shake of Tony's head. "Cremation and burial at sea."

"Horcruxes?" Ron suggestion was barely a whisper, and his hand had strayed oddly to his throat, but before Neville could question it, he had shaken off whatever the memory that undoubtedly went back to That Year with a pragmatic shrug. "I hate to say it, but Mike and Terry had a history of playing in some very big magical leagues that weren't always what I'd consider wise."

"Michael Corner was a Healer with every bone of his body." Demmy had sat up completely now, tossing back her hair in tight-eyed defense of the man Neville knew had inspired her own medical training. "He couldn't have."

"Boot could be an ice cold son of a bitch." Zach said, fidgeting uncomfortably with the buckle of his wand holster. "We all saw him AK Mike."

"That was anything but cold." Neville reminded him quietly. "That was love, Zach. Some of the deepest I've ever seen."

Brian had taken Harry's usual perch at the edge of the coffee table, drumming his fingers on his knees in thought. "Steve?"

"He was from warrior stock, sure," Tony admitted, "and that could come up when it needed, but we're back to where we were with Seamus. To get him to kill, you had to get him unglued. Besides, they were all too tall…five nine to five eleven."

"What if we're looking at possession?" Harry tapped the scar on his forehead, his smile humorlessly tight. "Not Horcruxes, but similar, maybe? Resurrected souls in someone else's body? Pensieve and Imperius?"

"Still wouldn't be our Nevermore." Tony sighed, seeming oddly as if he wished that horrible possibility were more plausible in a way that made Neville wonder what grotesque abominations of dark magic his friend had been researching. "With that kind of duality, you'd never get a clean AK."

"But for the diaries?"

"It'd take blood, but like I said, I've been looking into every form of Necromancy I can find so much as a single mention of." Tony reached into his pocket, pulling out his notepad and thumbing through the first few pages before finding a series of numbers: _001-504-680-0128_ "I even spent two hours on the phone this morning to New Orleans with one of the nastiest leads I've ever followed."

Harry looked as confused as Neville felt. "New Orleans…in America?"

"Where else?"

After the initial bafflement, the name of the exotic city struck a chord of memory in Neville, connecting itself to the drawling sing-song nonsense of bayous and beignets, creole and andouille from a green-eyed, mocha-skinned boy who had joined Ravenclaw with the worst possible timing. "Tommy LeRoche?"

"A four hundred year-old voodoo queen who goes by Mama Nola." Tony snapped the notebook shut and shoved it back into his pocket, his tone so forcedly offhand and casual that it was frightening. "She has Tommy's soul in a jar at the moment, actually, and apparently, she had more than a little interest in Mike and Terry. She was working with Snape on the mess he was feeding Terry. She'd made a deal for them."

The cider shattered against the hearth. Neville didn't care. "_WHAT_?"

"Voodoo has some of the strongest potions-based traditions." Tony explained quickly. He had flinched back a little from Neville's outburst, but it hardly mattered. How bloody many more little secrets had those four been keeping up in that tower? "They'd been in contact for years, making all kinds of little deals and trades. When she heard about Mike and Terry, she nearly wet her robes from the sound of things. Snape knew about the Legilimency, and he was trying to use toxins that Mike wouldn't spot and counter. But to her, they'd forged one soul from two, and she wouldn't tell me why, but she made Snape send her cuttings from both their hair."

"Wait, wait, wait! Back up!" Neville had to sit down, his mind reeling as he struggled to follow the myriad implications of what Tony had just revealed. "Snape was supplying Terry? And hiding it from Mike?"

"I didn't know either until this morning, Commander, he -"

"That's in the past." Harry interrupted. "You two can settle it later. Tony, I'm putting you on a plane to New Orleans."

"You are doing no such damned thing."

"Tony -"

"I am not going to be strapped into a little metal tube, thank you," he crossed his arms stubbornly, "and I am not going to find out what altitude and terror does to legs that have been through enough already. Femoral bleeds at thirty thousand feet are not my idea of fun."

"I'll go." Demmy volunteered. "I've always wanted to see the US anyway."

"Not alone, lass." Brian shook his head firmly. "Take what was once a good Catholic lad with yous."

"Why should that matter?" Sally-Anne challenged. "Demmy's a good Auror, she can take care of herself."

"He's right." Tony said. "Louisiana Voodoo has more than a little borrowed from Catholicism, mostly the Spanish and Irish varieties."

"All right." Harry opened his folder, pulling out a form and beginning to fill it out. "I'll give you travel authorization, and Demmy, Brian, you two go out tomorrow, we'll see if we can find out what happened to that hair. Unless Tony's found anything else that could be a lead to how that chamber got opened?"

"Not so far, no."

Harry was still writing, but he looked up briefly, nodding his head towards Neville. "Has anyone been pressuring you politically? Or you, Justin?"

"Nothing that would indicate this level of urgency," Justin replied, "and nothing about Dumbledore or that goes back particularly clearly to the eighties."

Neville was still staring at Tony, but no matter how deep his desire to find out what intrigue had been going on between Snape and his officers, Harry was right. That was in the past, and the Nevermore was what mattered now. "I've gotten a lot of sympathy noise about my parents and Gran, but no one's seemed unnaturally interested."

Ron consulted his own notes, scratching something out and circling something else. "We also know the diary sender worked at some point with Nicolas Flamel."

"There's the Dumbledore tie again," Zach drew his wand, sending the broken pieces of the bottle into the bin and vanishing the spilled cider as he spoke. "But he may have taught others. Probably did, even."

"But he died almost twenty years ago," Sally-Anne retorted, "and you can't put a delay on Avatars."

"And we know the location of the diaries as of April '98," Tony added sheepishly, "which is after he died."

Ron was still looking at his notes, the creases between his brows deepening thoughtfully. "Draco?"

"Why him?" Harry asked.

"Slimy little ferret." Ron shrugged in casual distaste. "Hate him."

"He has alibis," Justin rebutted, "also too tall, and there's the little matter that he isn't well liked by most of our victim list."

The last bit of glass slammed into the bin so hard that it shattered further, and Zach threw up his hands in frustration. "We're looking for someone who doesn't exist!"

"Yes they do. Obviously, they do." Harry was in full professional mode, handing off the finished form and returning to his chalkboard to tap their accumulated lists of data and theories. "And they're between five three and five six, powerful, known to all of our victims, trusted by them, able to pull a clean AK, and want very, very badly to shut people up about Dumbledore."

"Which means," Sally-Anne said carefully, "we can release anyone from the Loch who doesn't have a tie to Dumbledore."

Harry seemed to consider the proposal for several seconds before responding, his tone deliberately neutral. "Who are you nominating for the new hot list?"

"Dung, McGonagall, Sprout, Flitwick, Hagrid, Diggle, Molly, Bill, Fleur, Charlie, Percy, George, Ron and Hermione Weasley, Lee Jordan," she rattled the names off without the slightest hesitation, "as well as yourself, Harry."

"Me?"

"You were closer to Dumbledore in the end than anyone."

"Fair enough." He took off his glasses, cleaning them in the gesture that Neville had learned had little to do with anything on the lenses and everything to do with buying himself time to think. "We don't leave me alone, then."

"Justin and Neville have other jobs." Zach protested. "We don't have the manpower to put someone on all those, and they can't stay at the Loch much longer without closing Hogwarts for the year. The fumigation story only gives us three days."

"And not to put too fine a point on it," Demmy added, "but Sue and Seamus can't keep that many people forever."

Harry had clearly made his decision, and he pointed at each of his people in turn as he spelled out the plan. "Sally-Anne and Zach to Hogwarts. You were part of Neville's DA, you know that castle inside and out. That covers the Professors and Hagrid. Diggle and Dung can be quartered there for now as well. Ron, you and Tony take shifts at the Burrow and pull your whole family in there. I know how hard you can lock that place down. Justin, Neville, you two are just going to have to watch each other."

Sally-Anne nodded, satisfied. "And you, Harry?"

"I'll call in Bridget Byrne from RIAD. She owes me, and she can watch my back for a while."

Ron cleared his throat, raising a hand to interrupt the rapid-fire assignments. "Hermione."

"Ron, please, not you too." Harry spun to face him, his face an unshielded plea for mercy from his oldest friend. "I know you're having problems, but -"

The ginger head shook slowly, and Neville realized that the expression on his face was the sickness of dawning realization rather than a hesitation to cause a fight. "The killer is framing Hermione. Maybe following her. She's as observant as a deaf and blind sea slug when she's preoccupied, you know that. We're back to our big four."

Tony seemed frozen on the edge of a revelation he didn't want, and he filled in the reference in a quiet, dead voice. "Money, love, power, and batshit."

"It's not for money." Zach argued warily, not liking this dangerous new territory any more than the rest of them. "We've got too many victims at this point, and no attempt at blackmail or robbery."

"Batshit is always a good one," Sally-Anne pressed her hands to her eyes and they went dark and dull, the self-imposed return to blindness allowing her to concentrate. "Except this one is too calculated. He's certainly not going to clear a mental health evaluation, but there's no mania, nothing out of control. This isn't a traditional compulsion or bloodlust."

"Power is looking thinner and thinner as well," Justin seemed the least bothered by the turn of topic, which surprised Neville to see, knowing that Hermione was one of his closest allies in Unification, "unless it's someone who is looking for vengeance against Dumbledore who couldn't get it while he was alive."

"That's a valuable theory." Harry allowed, "But I think Ron was getting at something else, and then we'll go back to it."

Ron looked like something in him had broken, and Neville found himself not wanting to watch. His voice was hollow, his face pale, his hands knotted together in a blatant effort to keep them from betraying him, his thumb rubbing the smooth curve of his wedding ring compulsively. "Love. What if it's someone who was in love with her, and that's turned to hate? Now they want to see her destroyed, so they're framing her for murder."

For an instant, it almost seemed like a confession, and the idea took Neville's breath away, but the expression in Ron's eyes when he looked up dismissed the already-impossible notion immediately. What was there, he understood far too well; the gut-wrenching fear and helplessness that someone you loved so much was being targeted by such apparently unstoppable evil. Neville knelt beside the armchair, putting a steadying hand on the other man's knee. "But if that's the case, why not go after her parents, or for that matter, why not you, Ron?"

He shook his head miserably, not meeting Neville's eyes. "I know she's been pursuing the diaries on her own. She's told me she hasn't, but…" His voice had begun to roughen, and he hid it in a cough, swiping a fist against the back of his eyes as he found and reclaimed the professionalism of the Auror and looked up again with a challenging composure. "Yeah, well, she has. A lot. More since Dad; she's hardly ever home. And I'm sorry I haven't said anything about it, but she hasn't told me she's found anything, and I didn't really want to bring our personal issues to work. But what if the Nevermore's goal is to keep the mystery unsolvable and taunt her into pursuing it until she destroys herself by getting implicated in more and more of these?"

Harry had written _Hermione framed? Susp. jilted x?_ on the board, but he didn't look up from it, lingering the chalk on the second stroke of the x. "Do you have someone in mind?"

Ron frowned, thinking hard for a long moment before making a noise of defeat, shoulders sagging. "She turned Zabini down pretty hard at the Yule Ball, but I can't see him holding THAT kind of grudge that long, and again, he's not someone who would be trusted by the old Order as far as they could spit his little Slytherin arse. There was Cormac and Krum, but they're both dead, and if she's had any other exes or…" He paused, swallowing hard before forcing himself to finish. "…lovers, I don't know."

There was a soft respect for Ron's emotions in Zach's voice, but he didn't let the matter drop. "So who else hates Hermione that much?"

"A lot of people thought she was an insufferable twat at school," Demmy admitted, "and there were plenty of times I'd have done a lot to see her really blow an exam, but that's a far cry from setting her up for murder, and everyone I knew was more or less casting the same spell there."

"We don't need to go back that far," Tony corrected. "She's been the best prosecutor on the docket for four years now. She's racked up quite a list that doesn't even need love to jump straight to the hate part. Especially someone who feels like a loved one was maybe unfairly convicted and wants to see the same happen to her."

"But again," Neville reminded him, "we need someone trustworthy. There's no one that close to our list that Hermione has prosecuted. Even Finnigan, she was his defense."

"Wait a minute," Brian's face was a perfect study in shock, and he slapped his palm against his forehead. "Daft fuckin' - why are we going to New Orleans?"

"I don't - " Neville started to reply, then it came to him as well, and his mouth dropped open, moving uselessly over several almost words before he managed to speak again. "Oh, bloody hell. We have been idiots, haven't we?"

They'd all figured it out, the sudden comprehension etched on every face, though it was Justin who said it. "Hair. A bit of hair, a bit of Polyjuice, and the Nevermore could be six eight for all we know."

"Hermione's hair, even." Harry agreed. "Wouldn't be hard to come by. Follow her under any one of a hundred ways to stay unseen, then double back under Polyjuice after she's left - pretend to have forgotten something, so bloody easy, no suspicion at all…and strike."

"It's too plausible." Ron jumped to his feet, as if he could go right now and snatch her bodily out of harm's way, despite her already being theoretically safe at the Loch with the others. "We've got to lock her down! I mean, even when we let the others go, she's got to stay!"

"She'll never agree to it." Tony waved at the pile of papers that had seemed so triumphant so recently. "She's got Rosier and a dozen other cases hot."

Harry considered it, checking his notes again. "Then Ron, I'm pulling Thompson from the Enforcers - the only reason he's not in green is he doesn't think the job sees enough action - for the Burrow, and you are going to be attached at the hip to your wife."

Neville held up a hand, not wanting to come off as being difficult but at the same time remembering all too clearly how Harry himself had blocked him from working directly on the Nevermore. "Don't you think that's conflict of interest using her husband?"

"Neville's right," Zach agreed. "Switch Ron and I; I'll do it."

"I need absolute coverage, especially if we suspect Polyjuice is being used." Harry's reply was nothing but practical, whatever emotions he had to be feeling at all of this locked down so completely they might as well not have existed. "Someone who can literally shower and sleep with her."

"And I'm sorry, Zach," Ron insisted, a faint hint of his old self back in the quirk of his smile. "I'm not farming that out. You've got your own."

"Right on." The answering smile was understanding more than amusement, but it disappeared the moment he turned his attention back to Harry. "I'm still shit scared about releasing everyone from the Loch."

"Zach, I'm releasing my sons and my extremely, extremely, may-already-be-in-labor pregnant wife."

"Not this soon." Zach didn't back down, and the look in his eyes said plainly that Harry was free to be as much of an idiot as he wished, but would have a long way to go if he thought he was getting near Megan and the kids. "Just because it's been twenty-four hours, we don't throw out the whole old plan. Maybe the Nevermore was just planning to hit someone we pulled and they're regrouping? We open the gates, and they'll just go back to their old victim."

"Fair enough point." Harry sighed, checking his watch, and Neville did not envy him the responsibility of the decision, even though his own family was safely elsewhere. "We give it the full three days the 'fumigation' buys us, and then, if there's still no move from the Nevermore, we're going to have no choice anyway."

Demmy took the travel authorization from the inner pocket of her notepad, glancing at Brian with a small, uncertain frown. "Are we still going to New Orleans tomorrow?"

"Absolutely," Harry confirmed. "You're on the first flight out of Heathrow."

Justin was already working his blackberry again. "There's a 7:40am on United to Louis Armstrong International in New Orleans that'll have you in the Big Easy via Washington DC by just after 2:00pm local time. If you don't mind giving me your full names and dates of birth, I'll book you now, and I'll put you in the Hotel Royal New Orleans in the French Quarter. Two nights, you can extend more if you need it. It's a restored Creole townhouse, looks quite eccentric, shouldn't be the sort of place where a slip of the magical tongue or even wand bats an eye."

"Demelza Chesten Robbins-Chambers, 20/3/81"

"Brian Michael Callahan, 8/2/63, about three days after the birth o' dirt." Brian said dryly. "But I'll bring back souvenirs."

"And I'll leave this up here." Harry levitated the little chalkboard, setting it on the sideboard. "Anyone who wants to copy it, add to it, come up with new ideas, I'm more than open. In the mean time, who's on supper?"

"Chicken Mai Fun, Suan Cai, Shepherd's Pie, and some of Mum and Dad's almond biscuits for pudding." The voice was unmistakable, but even still, Neville did not quite believe his own senses until he turned and saw Li in the open kitchen door. She was still wearing her apron, a bit of some kind of brown sauce on the tip of her nose and her hair tucked up with a pair of pencils, but she was grinning like the proverbial cat who had just inherited the entire Canary Islands.

For once, Ravenclaw or not, Tony asked no questions. He was up and across the room faster than Neville would have ever guessed possible, and Li gave a little cry of surprise as he scooped her out of the chair, the sound abruptly halted as his mouth took hers. She seemed off balance for a moment, as did he, but before anyone else had even reacted to her unexpected presence they had centered to one another, molding together effortlessly into the breathless passion of the kiss.

Justin chuckled, and it was only because he was less than three feet away that Neville could hear the imaginary conversation being muttered under his breath. "'What an unexpected pleasure, Mrs. Goldstein, it's been some time.' 'Indeed it has, Mr. Finch-Fletchley, perhaps we could arrange lunch soon.' 'Of course, I'll have my secretary contact you for scheduling.' 'Thank you, but if you'll pardon me, I seem to have acquired a profound fascination with my husband's tonsils.' 'But certainly, I do understand.'"

Demelza's reaction was far more audible and distinctly dramatic as she flopped down on the couch with a frustrated moan. "Oh, that's not fair. If I start studying Necromancy, will Art make breakfast before I leave?"

"The Loch couldn't accommodate her mobility and sanitation needs with the greater crowding." Zach was smiling deviously, and Neville realized that he was the only one who has not reacted with astonishment at her appearance.

"When -?"

"About noon," Zach shrugged, the smile widening boyishly. "I just wanted to let it be a surprise."

Harry laughed, clapping the taller man on the back. "You're a hopeless romantic, Smith."

Brian raised an eyebrow in mock scandal. "He don't seem t'be complainin'."

"Neither is she." Zach agreed.

"I am." Sally-Anne stuck her tongue out at the oblivious couple who were not yet showing any signs of coming up for air. "Get a room, you two. It's bad enough I'm having to resort to my teenage dating service without the reminder of what I'm missing."

Hands had begun to wander, and Li finally broke the kiss, giggling as she swatted him gently. "Supper first, Tony. I worked hard on it."

"Of course. Of course." Tony's smile was breathlessly radiant as he settled her tenderly back into the chair. "And Asa? Fi?"

"They're doing wonderfully."

"And you?" He brushed a loose strand of hair back from her forehead, searching her face intently, hungrily. "You're all right? Nothing happened?"

"I'm fine." She took his hand, kissing it softly and nuzzling it with the side of her face. "Better than fine now. I've missed you."

It seemed an effort for him to pull away, and he hesitated over the handles of the chair. "May I?"

She nodded. "Of course."

Tony pushed her into the kitchen, and there was a long silence after the door closed behind them before Ron rolled his eyes, chucking a thumb at where they had just disappeared. "It's sickening."

Neville couldn't help his own broad smile, even as watching them had made him miss Hannah all the more. "You're jealous."

Ron nodded, and there was no word for his expression other than pouting. "Bloody right I am."

"Now, now." Justin waved a finger at him in arch rebuke from where he had started tucking his discarded clothing into his bag. "In the wise words of the Prophet Mohammed, 'Keep yourselves far from envy; it eateth up and taketh away good actions, like as fire eateth up and burneth wood'"

"I'm not Muslim." Ron fired back. "Nor am I getting laid tonight. He's not Muslim either, and he is, so Mohammed can stay out of this."

The kitchen door had opened again, and Li stuck her head into the room, laughing. "How about, in the wiser words of the cook, 'those who keep talking about that which isn't their business may order takeaway, and supper is getting cold.'"

"Now _that _is wisdom." Ron agreed eagerly. "Let's eat."

Justin had finished re-packing the knapsack, checking his watch one more time before hefting it onto his shoulder. "You know, that's what I like about you, Ron. You're always predictable."

Ron stopped mid-stride, wheeling back with a glare of unexpected intensity. "Don't say that!"

"I'm sorry," Justin apologized, taken aback at the accidental offense. "I didn't -"

"I know." Ron sighed, suddenly embarrassed by his own overreaction. "It just…makes me nervous right now, considering everything. But you're right."

The aroma coming from the open door was better than any expensively elegant repast at the Wizengamot could ever have hoped for, and Neville discovered that he was truly hungry for the first time in what felt like days. Already, Demmy, Brian, Harry, Sally-Anne and Zach had answered the invitation, and he could hear the sounds of happy conversation mingling with the clink of plates and serving utensils. He put one hand on Justin's shoulder and the other on Ron's, about to tell them that predictability could wait, but his stomach interrupted with a loud rumble, and all three men laughed.

"I could not have said it better myself," Justin gave a little bow, gesturing to the door with a flourish. "Shall we? We may not get the girl, but I believe that when it comes to her cooking, it's an open marriage."

OOO

There was nothing in the back yard that could be called landscaping, per se. Rather, it was a habitat for children, any semblance of a lawn long ago given up to simply be whatever grew despite the digging and running and climbing and tackling, pragmatically mowed now and then to a reasonable length. The large elm was strung with ropes for climbing and swinging, and there were toys of both the manufactured and stick-based improvised type strewn a little bit everywhere. It was a warm night, and the shadows cast by the flickering light of the windows made it easy to imagine that any moment the architects of the happy chaos might return for a few last pajama-clad minutes of freedom before baths and bed.

He had come out onto the back step merely to improve the signal and get away from the others, but it was unexpectedly right to be here, in this space where the dandelions felt like tired smiling nannies with the precious little voice babbling in his ear. "And we went to the crackle berry, and I was brave and had a okra and it was yuk so I had mash and there was a store with all the sweeties and I got to have a one because I didn't not bite Trevor all the whole day!"

Neville hoped his daughter could hear the smile in his voice as he sat on the step. Certainly he could imagine her easily enough; a constant flurry of motion and ever so much drama with already both her mother's canny streak and the angel face that got away with it. "It sounds like you're having a wonderful time, Peg-A-Peg. What else have you been up to?"

There was a hesitation. She'd be rocking back and forth from her heels to the tips of her toes, swinging her arms and chewing on her lip. "Um…there's a pony."

She wasn't at all as excited as he would have expected at that. As a matter of fact, she sounded quite disapproving, and he forced himself to an appropriate air of solemn sympathy. "Will they not let you pet it?"

"Don't wanna pet it!" Ah, the stupid father tone. A gross error in judgment, clearly, assuming something so silly as a little lass who had a dozen different pony toys wanting to pet a version that was in a natural color. "It's a big pony. I don't like it."

There was genuine fear hidden behind the thin layer of petulant anger, and he reached out instinctively with his free hand before he caught himself that he could offer no comfort but words. "That's ok. Sometimes big things are scary. Maybe if you go with Mummy -"

"I want you to come hex it dead." It was not a request.

It was only the benefit of Cecily having given him a five year head start on the subject of precocious little girls and how remarkably violent they could be that saved him from laughing. "I don't think that would be very nice. I'm sure someone loves the pony."

"Nuh-uh." Another pause, an odd noise that sounded suspiciously like it might have involved pinching her brother, and she was back, the pony apparently forgotten now that he had failed to agree to its assassination. "I went to toilet in the night."

"That's very good! I'm so proud of you!" He enthused genuinely. "I bet you'll be ready to wear big girl knickers all night when you come back."

"Yeah." He heard Hannah's voice muffled in the background, and Peggy sighed deeply. "Mummy wants the phone."

"You'd best give it to her then."

"No."

"Margaret…" The shift to her proper name was a warning she knew well, and though there was a whining sound of dismay, it had the desired effect. There was a scuffling sound as the phone was relinquished, and a few moments later, his wife's voice.

"Neville, love, are you there?"

He knew he was grinning like an idiot, and he didn't care any more than Tony had. She sounded happy and healthy and so beautiful that he could almost see her. The forsythia he was sitting next to burst into bloom accidentally, and he laughed at his own unconscious action. "You have no idea how wonderful it is to hear your voice. I've been missing you and the babies so much, I feel like I'm losing my mind."

Her answering chuckle was tinged with a melancholy that said everything about how keenly she felt the separation as well, and strangely, it was good to hear. "I hope you're keeping enough of it to have your wits about you on the Wizengamot. Did you start today?"

Neville made a noise of distaste. "The less said about that the better. But I do get paid at the end of the month, and they're not prorating it, so it should cover all the past-due and even start making headway on the current bills, considering what we haven't been spending this month."

"Mmm," he could hear the languid, satisfied smile in the sound, and it made him feel a little better about the hated job that it could at least offer them this relief. "What does it say about how old and responsible we've gotten that I think that might be the sexiest thing you've said to me in months?"

Her tone sent a shiver through him, his body having little concept of the distance when she spoke like that. He licked his lips, taking a deep breath. "Well then, I'll have to work on that."

"Not now." She sighed, but then the soft, husky seductiveness was back. "Maybe call again later? It's three in the afternoon here right now."

He nodded even though she couldn't see. "I'll definitely try." There was a pause, and he decided that if there was going to be any chance of waiting, a change of topic was very much in order. "How've you been feeling with the baby?"

"Really well, actually," she replied with a touch of pleasant surprise. "I'm a bit tired, but this one's being a lot nicer than either of the last two. Which is good, because this is a beautiful place, but it's also very big and very outdoors and they have been very, very busy."

"Peggy said there's a pony."

"Quite a few." She sighed, hesitating. "But I don't want to get into too much detail, Neville. I don't trust this completely."

"No, no, that's fair," he agreed quickly. "Neither do I."

"Do you think it will be safe soon? No specifics, just…is there an estimate yet?"

His first impulse was to tell her about the trap, the three days, but he stopped himself. It was strange keeping anything from her, even if it was for their safety, and he chose his words carefully. "We're hoping for a breakthrough."

"That's a no, then."

"I'm sorry, love. I should -"

"Stop that." The rebuke was sharp, but it softened almost at once, though the frustration was still clear. "If there's one thing I know about you, it's that you're doing everything you can and probably a dozen things you shouldn't be able to. And that goes for the rest of you too. I just wish I could be there with you."

"The kids need you more," he reminded her gently.

"I know. I just hate feeling tucked away. It's the old officer in me, I guess."

"You were an amazing officer."

Hannah chuckled, though there was a definite pride to it. "Rumor had it I got my stripes shagging the Commander."

"Rumor lies."

He could all but hear the wryly raised eyebrow. "No it didn't."

"That's not how you got your rank," he protested. "You had that before we got together. I made you Second Lieutenant because I -"

"Neville, I was playing."

"Oh. Right." He felt a little bit ridiculous. "I just…I've been thinking a lot about exactly how much I could use you. Not just for us, but everything else you are, baby. The way you can do ten things at once and the way you are with people and I don't have half your head with numbers and you never screw up the paperwork and -"

"Stop it, I'm blushing."

"You're pretty when you blush."

"Bastard." She was quiet for a few seconds, but when she spoke again, there was an odd reservation that had replaced the mischievous banter, and it put him immediately on his guard. "I don't know how much time we have, though, but I need you to know…I've been taking lessons while I'm here. The owner of the property is certified, and he offered to teach me, and part of it is that it makes me feel like I'm doing something, and part of it is that I just…with the way our lives have been, I should probably know."

Neville frowned, not liking the sound of this at all. "What sort of lessons?"

"I've been learning to shoot. Handguns and rifles."

He nearly dropped the phone. "Hannah!"

"Don't you even begin to sound offended when your best mate can take a Knut off a fence post at a hundred yards!"

"If you think I condone everything Seamus -"

"This isn't asking you to condone anything, or caring if you do. This is informing you because communication is an essential part of a strong marriage. Unlike getting my husband's permission to learn how to protect our family better." It was not a threat or a warning, it was simply a statement, and he knew better with to argue with those statements, in part because there was no winning, and in larger part because the reason there was no winning was because when she made them, she was inevitably right. As, he knew, was the case here, whether he wanted it to be or not.

On the other hand, not really still arguing was not the same as quite willing to let it go yet. "I just hate those things."

"Then you don't need to use them." Hannah said crisply. "This isn't a discussion, Neville."

"I know. I'm sorry." He sighed, hoping she could tell that the apology was sincere and not merely a concession of defeat. "I didn't mean to be a twat. I'm overprotective, and it's not fair."

"You're stressed," she corrected kindly. "I'll let it go. Because I don't think I can stay cross with you when I'd give so much to have you here. They've said we can come back, you know. For a real holiday, after all this is done and maybe after the baby is born."

"I'd like that very much."

"Nev?" Harry's voice made him jump; he hadn't heard the back door open. Bloody hell but he was being stupid. True enough, Zach's back yard should be safe enough, but the same could be said for most of the other places attacks had occurred, and here he was doing a damned good impression of what Ron had called a blind and deaf sea slug.

Neville bit back the anger at his own laxity, not wanting Harry to mistake it for anger at him as he turned, trying not to look caught. "Just a second."

Hannah, of course, was as observant as ever, and he could hear the sudden tension as she dropped to a whisper, picking up perfectly on how much the sudden arrival had frightened him. "Is someone there?"

He shook his head, letting her hear the self-reproach in his reply. "It's just Harry. I wasn't paying attention. We've made what we're calling the New RoR …all us Aurors sort of shacked up together so we can work on this thing around the clock if we need to."

The whisper returned to a normal volume, but she did not seem mollified. "Harry's worked himself into hospital more than once, and you worked yourself right out of the DA. I don't think I like the sound of that."

Neville smiled, unable to resist turning it back on her. "Communication, not permission."

"Oh, you!" She gave a short huff, angrier than she wanted to admit but not nearly as angry as she pretended. It was a kind of competitiveness he'd never had, but he appreciated it in her, and certainly appreciated what it had done in better times for the Leaky's business.

He could see Harry waiting, arms folded as he leaned against the back door. There was nothing urgent about the posture, but he knew he couldn't stay on the phone all night anyway. They both had things to do. "I love you, but -"

"With all my heart, and I know. You've got to go. Ring later?"

"Absolutely." Part of him wanted to say, to promise, to ask for more, but he wasn't as bold about that sort of thing as some of the others, and particularly not with his friend/superior officer standing not three feet away. He hoped she understood anyway.

"I will." She did, and it was all there, and it caught his breath in his throat. "Later, love."

"Later." Neville pressed two fingers against his lips and then to the phone, but it had already gone dark. He stared at it for longer than he should have and not nearly as long as he wanted to, but at last he shook his head, dismissing the longing and turning back to the here and now as he put the phone back in his pocket.

Harry didn't appear at all impatient, thankfully. If anything, he seemed a little embarrassed at having interrupted, and he gestured for Neville to stay where he was, coming down to join him on the step instead. "Hannah?"

He nodded, suppressing the urge to take out the phone again and just hold it, as if something of her could have lingered there. "Yeah. And the kids."

"How are they?"

The phone stayed where it was, and he turned instead to the forsythia, reversing the blooms and coaxing the leaves to come again instead. Too late in the season, wouldn't be good for it. The distraction was good. It almost kept his voice steady, and the tremor that escaped could be blamed on the effort that it really wasn't. "Very, very far away."

"But well?"

"It would seem so." He shrugged, looking back to Harry with a sheepish half-smile. "It's hard for me not to take apart everything they say and try to figure out where they are, but I know I don't know for a reason."

Harry nodded knowingly. "When we were out hunting, I was desperate to hear anything about Ginny, but at the same time, there was always that worry that if I knew too much…" He trailed off, not needing to finish, his fingers tracing the twinned circular scars on his forearm that Neville had never asked about. "Are you considering bringing them back if we release the others from the Loch?"

"No, for the same reason Ginny and the boys are staying at the Burrow under lock and key. You and I are a little too tied to this."

"Three generations. Four with your Gran." Harry grimaced, yanking down the sleeves that had been rolled above his elbows, though he didn't bother to button the cuffs. "All for one man's big plans to stop another man's bigger plans."

"'Leftovers and a door,'" Neville recited wistfully."

Harry gave him an odd look. "Huh?"

"Something Ab said when I asked him for help in the Hogshead. 'Leftovers and a door. If that was all most 'Great Leaders' wanted, we'd be a lot better off.'"

It brought a chuckle that was mostly politeness and died quickly. "That's what I'd like to talk to you about, actually."

Neville frowned, honestly confused. "Leftovers and a door?"

"No, no…" Harry took a deep breath, standing to pace the little square of concrete at the foot of the steps. "Look, Nev, when I brought you back into the Department, we had no idea how big this was going to get, or how many people were going to be hit."

"Of course not."

"At this point, it's my father-in-law, Zach's mother-in-law, Demmy's great aunt, Ron's father, our old boss…"

He nodded slowly, beginning to see where this was going. "Everyone's theoretically too close now."

"I was impressed by how you handled the Rosier case." The pacing stopped, and Harry faced him, displaying his unique talent for somehow at once being completely authoritative and yet casual in a way that Neville didn't think he had ever quite mastered. "You were nothing but professional, and not just with your own conduct, but the way you managed Ron. You took the points where it could have gotten uncomfortably personal and used your old connections to turn them into assets and break the case. You were even the one who asked me for the arrest warrant for Luna, then wound up working her well enough that we got full testimony and a plea bargain without ever needing to use it."

Maybe it was how judiciously it had been handed out in his childhood, but for all that his brief bouts of celebrity had taught him how to react to flattery, he still wasn't comfortable in handling real praise. He looked down at his feet, planting his hands firmly on his knees to keep from fidgeting with them. "I…I don't know what to say. You asked me to do a job, and I did it. What were you expecting?"

"Not corruption or anything." Harry shrugged, but Neville could still feel his gaze on what was now the top of his head. "I think I just forgot how fucking good at this you are. You're not as flashy as some of the others."

"I got lucky with the Rosier case."

"You did the right thing and it paid off," Harry insisted.

He made a dismissive noise, wishing the other man wouldn't be so damned stubborn about this. A simple 'good job on the Blue Bottle' would have more than sufficed. "Usually does in the end."

"Well, this time it's got me making you an offer."

Neville had completely forgotten that he had thought this was what was being proposed before the unfortunate barrage of compliments, and his head jerked up in abruptly renewed interest. "The Nevermore case?"

Apparently, his discomfort had been obvious enough, because Harry's face took on the look of a man who realizes he's gone too far. "I could drop you back to reserve," he said quickly. "You're on the Wizengamot now, that's a full-time job, and you've done what we asked of you in cutting our case load. The bargain's already been kept, and I could just hold you standby for anything else that comes up if you'd prefer."

Neville paused, not sure if he had misunderstood in the first place, and decided to chance it. "But if I didn't want to do that, am I wrong in thinking you were implying I have a chance to be on the Nevermore team? Not just for brainstorming sessions."

Immense relief washed away the odd hesitation, and Harry nodded freely. "Full investigative member of the detail."

His first instinct was to jump on it immediately, but he stayed himself, leaning back on his elbows against the stairs and staring up at the sky as he mulled it over. "It's not about the scheduling," he mused aloud. "Justin manages ten times as much."

"Justin," Harry pointed out, "is clinically insane."

"Maybe." It had been meant as a joke, he knew, and he hadn't been offended, just…not really listening. There was something bothering him about this, and he couldn't figure out what, and that was bothering him more than any of it. It wasn't the 'too close' bit that had kept him off in the first place. What Harry hadn't understood then and still didn't seem to was that if he could order the DA into death, he could handle this. It wasn't the time commitment either. The busier the better with his family gone.

"Are you worried what would happen if you caught him?"

That was closer, but not really it. "No. I've held my temper with worse."

"I…" Harry let out a low, incredulous whistle. "Worse. Sometimes, Nev, you say the simplest little things that scare the crap out of me if I let myself think about them."

Neville tilted his head back from his contemplation of the stars, fixing Harry with a distant relative of a smirk. "So do you. Did it even more when we were kids."

Harry spread his hands, not arguing the point as he joined him on the stairs again. Unlike Neville, he didn't protect himself with his arms, leaning fully back against the concrete to examine the stars just now peeking in patches through the overcast. "You know, I used to lie awake at night when I was home for the summers, and I would honestly be shaking with terror that when I grew up, some kind of switch would flip or something would kick in and I'd suddenly become like my Aunt and Uncle and live a perfectly normal, boring, mundane life where nothing mattered as much to me as winning the All-England Best-Kept Lawn Competition."

"I think we can safely say that hasn't happened," Neville deadpanned quietly. Was it the possibility that it might be a loved one; Hermione or, Merlin forbid, Finnigan after all? That was closer. Closer. There. He didn't want to get closer. He'd been face to face with true human monsters too many times already, and he simply, selfishly didn't want to do it again.

His thoughts were interrupted by a warmth against his thigh, and he sat up quickly, fishing the Galleon from his pocket and tipping it to the light to read the message. Harry frowned, coming up beside him and craning his neck to try and see the coin around Neville's shoulder. "Something wrong, Nev?"

The message became clear, and he closed his fist over it, hiding it from the other man's view and turning to face him. He put his hands on Harry's shoulders, meeting his eyes firmly. "I'm joining the Nevermore team."

Harry's shoulders tensed beneath his grip, his eyes widening. "Has there been another murder?"

"No, just the opposite," Neville assured him, "but I wanted you to actually hear me."

The fear turned to bafflement, and Harry twisted away, tilting his head. "What do you mean?"

He opened his hand to reveal the coin, allowing now the grin that had been threatening to burst through too early. "Susan and Luna just delivered your daughter."

Thankfully, Neville was ready to catch, because concrete stairs were very unforgiving. It wasn't really a faint or a swoon so much as it was just a sudden case of very weak knees, and it was enough just to kind of guide the stunned Auror a little as he sank down, head in his hands. "Oh my God."

"Five pounds, seven ounces." He showed Harry the message, his own pulse racing with shared excitement. "And they're all ok."

"I'm…." Harry staggered to his feet, pulling his wand, but Neville caught him before he could rotate, using his other hand to rapidly tap the Galleon and let the Loch know the message had been received.

"You're not Apparating anywhere. I'll take you side-along."

Slowly, vaguely, Harry nodded, patting him on the arm. "See, Nev, this is why I want you on the team. You're the responsible one."

"We'll see about that in seven months or so," he laughed. "Now come on, let's meet little…." Neville stopped, realizing that in all the names he'd heard Ginny bat around, there had never been a final consensus that he knew of.

"Lily." Harry filled in. "Lily Jean…I think. At least, that's what we were planning."

"Lily Jean Potter is a beautiful name." Still keeping a close eye on whether he was going to need to catch or steady, he started to tap out another message. "I'll let the others know, and I've already told them we'll be there in five."

"Tell Ginny I love her, too, and that she's amazing, and that I'm so -"

Neville cut him off with a chuckle. "That won't fit on the Galleon. 25 characters maximum."

Several seconds of thinking, including some counting on fingers, but at last, Harry accepted that this was beyond his current brain capacity and shook his head, still smiling too hard to even seem frustrated. "Just LOVE, then. All caps."

"That I can do." He sent the message as requested, though it was good that it was so short. The announcement had caused no small eruption among the DA, and the letters on the Galleon were shifting so fast that it was hard to keep up as the congratulations and other exclamations flew back and forth, half the time not even marked with the letter codes they'd used to identify who was sending what to whom.

Then the letters shifted again, and there was no mistaking either the sender or the intended. Neville choked on a burst of laughter, slamming his other hand over his mouth to prevent a noise that might alarm the others inside the house or even the neighbors.

Harry froze from where he had started pacing again, all but holding his breath. "Everything still ok?"

"Reply." Neville barely managed to press past the tightly contained laugh. "Ginny."

"Huh?"

He couldn't do it. He'd lose it completely. It was an increasingly near thing as it was. Neville had to grab the handrail as he doubled over with what was more and more becoming a losing battle, holding out the coin to Harry to let him read the reply for himself.

_IF LV U PUSH BB OUT CUNT!_

TO BE CONTINUED


	12. Circulorum

It had taken all his attention to safely Apparate with Harry, who was crackling energy in too many emotions to bother attempting to catalog, but Susan had been expecting them, and she met them almost before the sound faded. Her work robes were damp and stained with all the assorted unromantic byproducts of birth, her hair escaping in long tendrils from its usual plait, but she looked both excited and very satisfied with herself.

Harry had erupted immediately into questions, but she interrupted him easily, leading them across the side yard to the kitchen door of the farmhouse. "She went into labor about three this afternoon, and at first we thought it was just false contractions because she wasn't due for another week, but then her water broke, and we had a bit of a decision to make."

The new father frowned, trying to catch her eye with a sharp glare, but she was ahead of them and didn't show any signs of turning back. "Why didn't you call me?"

"Ginny said to only call you if something went wrong or it was over; you were apparently enough of a wreck with the boys, and that was in hospital." Susan stopped at the door and Neville noted in approval that she needed two keys to get in, even if the delay had set Harry fidgeting restlessly. "She thought if it was like this, you'd just wind up making things worse."

"You just did it yourselves, then? Here in the house?" As soon as the words were out of his mouth, the question seemed ridiculous, but it was too late.

Susan paused at the foot of the stairs, raising a curious eyebrow at him. "How do you think the majority of the human race has gotten here, Neville? It certainly hasn't been in hospitals. Not to mention we already have one attack in a supposedly secure ward at St. Mungo's. It really was ok. I've delivered hundreds of livestock plus two babies of my own, it's Ginny's third, and Luna's a certified doula. We moved everyone else to the barn for the time being. "

Harry stopped halfway up the stairs, at once deeply suspicious. "A what?"

"Like a midwife." Susan clarified.

That seemed to sit better than the unfamiliar word, and Harry visibly relaxed, even if only a little. "She's really ok then?"

"She's perfectly ok. Ginny's healthy and strong and there were no complications. Spell and spark perfect delivery of a perfect baby girl."

As they made their way down the hall, Neville couldn't help but see that although they appeared to be the only ones in the house right now, there had been plenty of other residents very recently. Makeshift beds of every form were crammed in everywhere, even lining the halls with cushions pulled from other furniture, feed bags stuffed with straw, and even a few piles of raw fleeces. He had to watch his feet to avoid treading on anyone's sleeping arrangement, and he envied the nimble effortlessness with which Harry stepped lightly ahead to come even with Susan. "Can I see them?

"Of course." She smiled rather proudly, opening the last door on the left. "Right through here."

It was Susan and Seamus' own bedroom, dimly lit with a few candles, the sweet smell of burning aromatic herbs (cinnamon, lavender, and sage) just shy of overpowering. There was a pile of soiled sheets and towels bundled at the end of the bed next to a basin of water and a basket of tools and flasks, and the bed itself had been stripped down to a mattress covering and a single warm blanket.

Ginny was sitting propped upright against the headboard, her long red hair braided in a circlet around her head that someone whom he assumed to be Luna had filled with thyme blossom, silver leaf, and striletzia, the blanket loosely draped around her bare shoulders and the tiny bundle at her breast. Though flushed and sweat-soaked, she was all but glowing, and he was suddenly, breathtakingly reminded of the court of Danu. It felt the same here, so much so that it was dangerously rousing whatever the Goddess had left in him, and he took a step back, suddenly afraid. Fortunately, no one seemed to notice. Ginny had looked up at the sound of the door opening, and she sat up surprisingly quickly, reaching out to her husband. "Harry!"

He sprinted across the room, skidding to his knees at the bedside to grab her hand. "Ginny! My God, are you all right?"

"I'm fine…" She kissed the top of his head, then patted the bed, inviting him to sit beside her as she pulled back the blankets at her breast. I've got someone for you to meet."

He couldn't see Harry's face, but the awe and joy and love were eloquent in the hushed tones of his voice. "Well, hello, Lily. Aren't you as lovely as your Mummy?"

Ginny snorted, plucking away a wilting bit of greenery that had flopped into her face. "I'm not lovely right now."

Their voices were growing vague, distant. Neville felt a little like he was going to pass out, and he let himself sink to the floor in the doorway, propping his head between his knees. Three bloody powerful witches locked up in there for eight hours, give or take, delivering a baby under all kinds of stress and with Luna knowing how to call on all of the old magic very much on purpose.

"Yes you are, I've never seen you so gorgeous. You're so brave, I can't believe you - "

Sweet Merlin, he knew the gifts had lingered, but did she still own him? It felt like it. Like hooks sunk into the very essence of his magic, drawing the veins tight, holding him.

"Nothing our grandmothers didn't do, Harry, and plenty of other women."

He had to close his eyes. The scent in the air had shifted, no longer burning herbs but the bright clean air of a seasonless garden locked in eternal bounty. Neville was afraid that if he opened them, he would no longer be at the Loch at all. He could feel the slight breeze on his skin, and more surreal still, the thin, rough linen of the old tunic rather than his cotton button-down. Had be been standing, there would have been no choice but to kneel, and as it was, his head bowed without him, his lips moving silently. _Bandia_.

"I don't care how many other women have done something like it. You're incredible, and you're not going to change my mind on that. Oh, look at her little fingers…she's perfect, Ginny!

"_All this, ya glad gave up at turn a world that weren't yours." The voice sounded inside his head, and he could not keep from gasping aloud. His eyes snapped open, and she was there, standing as real as flesh and blood in the doorway in front of him in all the magnificence he hadn't really remembered. She was still impossibly beautiful and lushly curved, still unashamedly nude, but there was no answering desire from his body this time, and she laughed as if reading his thoughts. "Ya think a Goddess what stands over the marriage bed and birthing chamber would call a man's heart from his wife?" _

"I couldn't have done it without Luna. Do you mind - I've already asked Hermione - if we name her Lily Luna?"

_No one else seemed to see her. Stranger still, they didn't seem to notice anything out of the ordinary about Neville himself, even though Susan was standing merely an arm's length away. He forced himself up, not to his feet, but to one knee, palms outspread to her, and though it should have felt ridiculous, it didn't at all. "You've let me keep it. Why, M'lady? I only asked you for enough for the one miracle." _

"If Hermione's all right with it, I'm all right. Where was she?"

"_And had ya asked more, I'd have not granted the once. Did ya think that such a bond as ya made with me would just vanish? An oath and a choice ya made, gave yourself t'me body and soul and the magic in your veins, and mine ya are." _

_He lifted his head, surprising himself with the sudden flare of defiance. "I was only yours because Hannah was gone, had been ten years dead and it was the only way to -"_

"She stuck it out until it started getting really gory, then she was giving herself an aneurism that we didn't have proper medical supervision and Luna gave her some tea."

"_Calm yourself, my still ever so noble knight. An oath to me is an oath to her, and to every woman and child and livin', growin' thing in this world. But you know this, don't ya?"_

"You say that like -"

_Neville hadn't realized he did until she said it, but now it was as certain as his own name, and he rubbed at the tingling scars of his palms, another awareness slowly dawning. "Time doesn't matter to you. It's not a straight line. The Forbidden Forest - it was already there. It's been there my whole life." _

"_Aye." _

"It was really, really relaxing tea."

"_What do you want from me now, then?" _

"_I ain't here for me knight, but because if ya be mine then too be those ya love, and all me protection upon them. Slan agus beannacht leat."_

"I see. So she's…."

"Asleep. For the best."

"_Then will you protect Hannah and my children?" Damn her, she was fading, and he stood, no longer caring what was proper or appropriate as he reached out, trying to catch the vision that now was barely anything. _

And now she was gone. Utterly. Neville shook his head, abruptly disoriented and a bit dizzy. He was standing in the doorway, gasping a little, and Susan had put a hand on his arm in quiet concern. "Neville?"

"Just…" He took a deep breath, trying to orient himself again. His hands were burning, and he pressed them together, a little afraid of what he might do before he could fully regain control. "I, uh, maybe a bit of an aura from Apparating with Harry, you know? Long way. He was pretty agitated."

Susan did not seem quite convinced, though thankfully, she also did not appear to have any inkling of what had happened. "You all right?"

"Of course," he nodded quickly, looking hopefully towards the bed. "Can I see the baby?"

"Absolutely, Nev," Ginny waved him over with the tips of her fingers, even though she had one arm holding the baby and the other wrapped around Harry, who had now climbed onto the bed beside her. "But then if you don't mind, I'd like a few minutes alone with Harry?"

"As long as you return him in one piece." Neville joked weakly, trying to offer Susan a smile to alleviate her worries. "I don't think Zach would appreciate getting promoted that way."

"No," Ginny chuckled, nuzzling her face against Harry's neck even as she elbowed him a bit in the side. "If I was going to kill you, that would have been earlier."

She really was a very pretty baby, as newborns went. A bit squashed and very red, of course, but he could still see that she favored Ginny's beautiful features, as well as copying her mother in the color of the delicate fluff of hair that peeped from beneath the blanket. "A ginger, is she? Matter of time, I suppose."

Harry seemed about to burst with pride in both of them. "She looks just like her Mummy, doesn't she?"

"She does." Neville agreed, shaking Harry's hand firmly. "Congratulations, both of you. Ginny, is there anything I can get you?"

"I'm fine." She closed her eyes, leaning back into the pillows piled behind her. "I'll give you Harry back soon enough…I'm pretty worn out."

"I can imagine." He started to leave, then stopped again at the doorway. "If there is anything, let me know, ok?"

There was no answer from either of them, both already lost in each other and their new arrival, and Neville let himself out, closing the door quietly behind him. Susan and Luna were waiting on the other side, matching looks of triumphant pride in their smiles, and he laughed. "You two…you look like Nifflers in a gold mine."

Susan made a face, plucking at her robes. "Bloody, mucky Nifflers."

"There's something so intrinsically right about assisting another woman through the natural birth process." Luna mused. "It's a connection to the Essential Divine Feminine that's incredibly powerful."

Neville nodded with more fervency than she had expected. "Oh hell yes."

Susan gave him a very odd look, and he half wondered if she had seen something after all, though he didn't dare ask in case she hadn't. Seeing ancient Celtic Goddesses in a friend's bedroom might be something Luna would understand, but she was rather less practical. "It was certainly something exceptional," Susan allowed finally, "even if it did make me very grateful Tommy and Cecily were both born in hospital with my choice of potions."

They had started down the hallway, but Luna hung back, and Neville turned, wondering if he had offended her. "Are you coming with us?"

She shook her head, pointing to the basket of sheets and towels that he hadn't even noticed had been removed from the bedroom. "There's a lot of cleaning up to do, if you don't mind."

"Not at all, Luna." Susan replied quickly, "If you want to tackle that laundry, you're more than welcome."

They navigated the rest of the hallway in silence, but by the time they reached the downstairs sitting room, he couldn't contain his praise. Each of the little sleeping areas was neatly marked with a name and a small bag for personal belongings, and they had passed several makeshift coat racks, as well as at least two changing stations for the children still in nappies and the office which had been converted into a playroom full of toys. "You've set up an amazing operation here, Sue. It looks…."

"If you say refugee camp," she interrupted ruefully, "that's hitting the tip of the wand."

"I was going to say so well organized." He pointed to the wall, where a chart had been hung with a list of designated times for bathing and a schedule of meals. "I'm impressed."

She shrugged. "It has to be."

"Fearless Leader come to see the new one in t'ranks?" The familiar voice came from the armchair by the fire, though he couldn't see his friend until Seamus stood, holding out a small, squirming wad of blanket. "This one's lookin' for ya, Sue. Salome's been suckin' him while ya were in with Ginny, but he's like his Da, he knows who's got t'best set."

Susan was already unbuttoning her robes with one hand as she took Tommy with the other, kissing the top of his head as the blanket came away. He responded with a disgruntled fuss, trying to twist away, but she balanced him expertly, bouncing him a bit to shush him. "Oh, you're hungry are you, little lad? Here we go, Mummy will make it better."

"Seamus!" Neville let her settle into the chair to begin nursing the baby, moving past to greet his best friend with an enthusiastic embrace. He still couldn't say anything about what had happened upstairs, but it was still an incredible relief just to be with the only other person with whom explanations wouldn't even be needed, the man whom had always been a friend but these past five years had also been the anchor of shared memories that promised him that he hadn't entirely lost his mind.

Seamus returned the embrace, then broke away, sitting on the arm of the chair next to Susan, arms crossed as he grinned cheekily up at Neville. "Hows things goin' on findin' the bastard t'rid us o' all these houseguests before we starts feedin' them sheep?"

"We've got some theories," Neville said carefully, "but I don't know how much I can tell you. We'll have to wait for Harry."

The grin widened with an innocence that could only mean trouble. "Let me guess, you're lookin' at Hermione and he don't want t'hear none o' it?"

Neville's eyes widened. "How did you -?"

He gave a little bow, winking. "Been my business a long time t'know things ain't none my business t'know."

"Seamus…."

"And when I was at your place last, I wired your shoe."

Neville made a noise of dismay, cuffing the other man not really gently on the side of the head. "Sneaky bastard!"

Now the grin did vanish, but it wasn't because of the blow that hadn't been all that hard. "I ain't gonna be kept in the dark, Fearless Leader."

Tommy was firmly about the business of a late night snack now, and Susan glanced up from where she had draped the blanket, her pretty face set in stern lines of pure business. "Neither of us are. If you're going to use us this much, we deserve to know."

"It's not my call," Neville protested, "it's Harry's."

"Harry doesn't know us like you do," she fired back immediately. "And when he's done, I'm going to be having a talk with him about using us more effectively."

He frowned, taking a seat on the opposite chair. It felt rather like an ambush, and he didn't like where it seemed to be going. "Is this about Seamus' offer to go hunting for us?"

She shook her head, and a dangerous edge appeared to the smile that had sparked her eyes without touching her mouth. "It's about mine."

"Yours?" Neville asked bemusedly.

Seamus made a disgruntled noise, twisting the end of his ponytail with a shrug and bearing an unsettling resemblance to a recently grounded teenager. "Had a few words with me, she did, whens I told her what I was plannin."

She did not appear in the least sorry. "Words like stupid, reckless, and absolutely not."

For all that he agreed with her on some elements, Neville felt like he still needed to have the other man's back. "As he just pointed out though, Sue, he's very good at what he does."

"Which is not at all what your case needs." She retorted crisply. "The Nevermore is not some back-alley thug or hired assassin, which is where Seamus could be your superstar in running him to ground. He moves in circles of power, waltzes in and out of secure wards and high-ranking offices…offices where my husband would not be welcome. In short, he moves in my circles."

This was not at all where he had expected things to go, and Neville tilted his head, wondering if he had somehow misunderstood. "Are you asking to be added to the case?"

"Call me a special consultant, whatever you need to for the paperwork, but yes, I'm asking to go undercover for you."

Part of him wanted to refuse her outright, even if he didn't have the authority, but he bit back the overprotective impulse, aware that she would not have made such a request lightly. "How so?"

"How do you think I've done everything I've done for the DA, Neville?" A distinct note of frustration had entered her voice, sharpening the edge of the sarcasm. "By fluttering my eyelashes and appealing to them to have mercy on the poor young widow? You saw me get Seamus out of Azkaban. Did that strike you as someone fucking about on new turf?"

"Not really, no," he admitted warily. "But that's a different thing than a criminal investigation. You have no training."

"I haven't had training in any of it." She shifted the baby, waving her hand around the room to indicate not only the charts on the wall, but also her deeply piled desk that had been relocated to a spot in the far corner. "I've just done it, figured it out along the way. The only reason I'm not on the Wizengamot is that right now, I know everyone, own them, and am owed favors by most of them, and I don't want to start tipping that balance the other way. I've gotten exemptions, pardons, special accommodations, special assignments, authorizations for experimental procedures, grants, scholarships, kept people out of jail, put people in jail, and had legislation passed. What have you boys done?"

The challenge was unsettlingly blunt, and he looked away into the fireplace awkwardly, rubbing at the back of his neck. "Not…that."

Despite his discomfort, Seamus seemed positively smitten at the blaze in her eyes, and he leaned down, kissing her reverently on the top of her head. "This, Fearless Leader. This is why I'm in love."

He nodded, not for the first time just a little bit afraid and not entirely sure of whom. "I can see that."

"If you want to know who has that much influence and that much hate," Susan continued undaunted, "I will find you that person, and I will do it as a Pureblood who can talk to people Justin can't, and as someone who is so much a fixture at the Ministry that no one will bat an eye that I'm there or be on their guard like they are when they see green robes coming."

"Witch Weekly," Seamus added, "named her t'most powerful woman in magical politics last year, and she don't even hold no office."

She reached up, squeezing his hand in a way that was neither reproach nor warning nor thanks but a little of all three. "You're bragging."

He nodded boldly. "Damned straight."

Neville stood again, pacing the room slowly as he considered it. As he'd already pointed out, the choice was not officially his, but he held no illusions - nor did they - that Harry would not only ask his opinion on this, but more or less take it as spellcraft. Susan wasn't part of the new hot list, she had no known connections to Dumbledore, but if she started poking around, it might get very dangerous very quickly. Of course, if Danu really was protecting people, she was covered from two fronts, though it hadn't done much for his parents or Gran.

He gestured to Seamus, who joined him, and he tipped his head low to keep the question between the two of them. "Don't ask why I want to know right now, please, but what exactly does Danu protect?"

Seamus, fortunately, did not ask, though the curiosity was clear in the tone of his answer. "Crops, farmers, growin' things, newlyweds, pregnant woman, babies, Mams with little ones. Ireland." The blue eyes narrowed. "Ya ain't gonna start muckin' about in -"

"I'm not going to do anything new, no," he promised, stroking his palm distractedly as he watched Susan nurse her son. Mothers with young children. He closed his eyes. _If I choose to endorse this, don't let her be harmed, please. Cecily already lost her father, and she's saved a good man from himself and done so much good for so many. Surely that should mean something to you._

It was, he realized as he opened his eyes, probably what you could consider a prayer, and that was strange to say the least. He cleared his throat, pushing it away before he could think about it too much and sitting opposite Susan again. "What are you asking from us in return?"

"I want a fiat of undercover operations in case I get caught doing something dodgy." She paused, readjusting the baby with a pained wince. "Sorry. He's getting teeth. Other than the fiat, though, I've spent the last ten years getting together everything I need."

Neville gave a slow, noncommittal nod. "When would you start?"

"Immediately. I even have the perfect cover; if the Ministry - of which Harry is a part - is going to use my residence as a safe house for this many people, I am going to get a grant to cover expenses."

"I thought you could easily afford -" he began, but she interrupted him, the fire returned to her eyes with the air of something long-fought but in no way dimmed.

"The entire point I've been pursuing for a decade is that shouldn't matter. That there is a difference between handouts or welfare and basic civic responsibility. Whether it's PTSD therapy or housing refugees, no one should ever suffer further hardship for the privilege of continuing to serve at the hands of a society for which they volunteered to lay down their lives, especially when you're not looking at a force of hundreds of thousands, but of just over thirty."

He mulled it over another long moment, then let out a long sigh that they all knew was a yes. "I can't do this without Harry."

Susan's smile turned blissfully canny. "I just helped deliver his baby in my bed."

"He owes ya."

She nodded almost girlishly. "Exactly."

Neville stared at the two of them in growing awe. "Did you plan it that way?"

"I didn't plan for Ginny to go into labor," she conceded, "but I wasn't ignorant of how it could be advantageous to me."

"You're a lot better at politics than I am."

"And that's why," she extracted her hand from beneath the baby, switching arms without ever moving his mouth from her breast and patting Neville fondly on the knee. "You need me on the team."

"I think we do." There was nothing but respect in the concurrence, but then something else occurred to him. "What about Seamus?"

"Stay here," He made a gesture that wasn't quite like a shrug, spinning Susan's wand between his fingers in intricate, thoughtless patterns. "Take care o' the little one, continue ticking time off me sentence."

There was no sign of regret or disappointment, which bothered Neville, and he kept his voice carefully neutral, avoiding making it an accusation of anything. "You were hoping to earn an early parole."

"Yeah, well, what's got me here in t'first place stead o' Azkaban is that lovely piece o' work, and I reckon if she catches t'Nevermore for yous…" He trailed off, and his smirk cracked the thin veneer of domesticity to expose a glimpse of the abyss beneath. "Besides, if she don't, or if she finds that someone has been hirin' a nasty little knife in t'dark, I won't have gone soft so fast as that. Cut me hair, dye it dark, a bit o' makeup for coverin' the more distinctive decorations, and I'll slip right into your shadow world for ya like ain't been yesterday."

Neville looked from one to the other, letting out a low, astonished whistle as he struggled for words. "The two of you…"

"Are like's not the most dangerous couple in Britain," Seamus finished cheerfully. "Aye."

"Just…" He gestured vaguely at the baby, wondering what if anything was the appropriate response to that. "Please try not to raise Tommy or Cecily with aspirations of world domination, all right? That's such a headache for everyone else."

Tommy had apparently finished, and Susan laughed, lifting him into the air with both hands and then swooping him down to tickle his belly with her nose. "Oh no, we won't do that to Tommy, no we won't! Tommy's smarter than that, he knows that the person on top catches all the hexes, yes he does, yes he does! You don't be the person on top, you own them! You own them, and you tickle their toes and blow raspberries all over their tum!"

Neville shook his head slowly, feeling as if he had just gotten in very, very far over his head in a way he couldn't quite define yet, which made it all the worse. Seamus put a hand on his shoulder, and he looked up at the other man bemusedly. "And people still underestimate you two?"

"All t'damned time," he lilted easily.

Another long silence, watching Susan play with the baby, and he finally decided what to say, squeezing Seamus' hand. "Thank you. Both of you."

"You're welcome, Fearless Leader," the smile remained, but it had quirked in lopsided confusion. "But for anything' specific ya got in mind?"

"Being on our side."

OOO

The stakes had been, in some ways higher, but Neville would ten times rather have been taking his MAGI exams again. At least there he not only was confident in his subject matter, he had not felt as though he were being judged on anything else. Here, though neither of his supposed teachers/mentors/handlers/whatever-they'd-decided-to-call-themselves were actually looking at him, he felt as though his every breath was being scrutinized keenly, weighed in the balance of points added or subtracted on their elaborate private scoring system.

Neville licked his lips, hoping he had indeed followed the last several minutes of obtuse, posturing formalities correctly. He hoped a glance to Justin would offer some clue, but the his face was as unreadable as usual, and he sighed, resigned to the possibility he was going to make a fool of himself but just a bit too stubborn not to find out. "So if I'm getting this right, now that Susan's proposed the motion and you've sponsored it, with Malfoy seconding, we take a recess for everyone to read it, and then we vote?"

Justin nodded, his eyes never leaving the milling figures across the wide, circular room. "For everyone to pretend to read it, at least."

"And assuming no one requests a debate," Malfoy added.

"But that's not very likely, is it?"

"One never knows." He shrugged, seeming bored by the question, but his tone just a little too casual to be patronizing enough to be called on. "Debate can serve a lot of purposes that have very little to do with what's actually on the table, just like I don't particularly care who pays for this, but supporting pro-DA bills is one of the best ways to remind people that I'm extremely repentant."

"Oh, now that's interesting." If Justin had heard the latter part of Malfoy's remark, he gave no sign of it, his attention caught by a dark-haired wizard about their own age who had just sent off three golden sparks from the end of his wand, receiving an answering green spark from the clerk below. "So we're going to have a debate after the recess."

Malfoy had caught Neville's look of confusion, and this time there was no hiding the edge of a superior smile as he folded his arms. "Savior there is going to make a statement. It's then up to anyone else if they want to make a counterpoint, and then counterpoint to that…theoretically that can go on forever, but not usually on this kind of proposal."

He didn't want to ask, but he had no choice, utterly unfamiliar with the name. "Savior?"

"His real name is Avior." Justin clarified, frowning at Malfoy in apparent disapproval of his use of the nickname. "Avior Black. Savior is just the moniker he's secured for himself in the press and certain circles. Some meaning it with a touch more sarcasm than others."

Although Neville knew he hadn't been following the papers as closely as he should have since the children were born, he couldn't think of any recent event that would have won someone such a grandiose title, and his curiosity was piqued. "Why?"

Malfoy chuckled dryly. "They got tired of trying to stick it on you and Potter. Since you ran out of Dark Lords, you've both been downright boring."

Neville was about to point out that he very much preferred to be boring, thank you, but Justin cut in first. "Credit where it's due, Malfoy, he's beautiful."

One pale eyebrow raised in feigned scandal. "Why, Justin, I never knew."

"I am not referring to his inheritance of his father's looks," the other man snapped sharply, "though when you combine that with his penchant for charity work that eschews shirts, it certainly hasn't damaged his press coverage."

"So aside from more ink than the rest of us could beg or bribe and every witch's heart," Malfoy pushed impatiently, "just what kind of beauty are you referring to?"

"Ascending rapidly to extraordinary power while still managing to keep anyone from actually knowing what his agenda is." Justin gave a small tip of his head that carried none of the respect it pretended. "I'd think you'd admire that."

"Oh, I do." Malfoy agreed, but his expression as he regarded Avior Black was still somehow disdainful, even hinting at resentment. "Though it's one thing to get elected with that…nice abs, a tragically noble past, and carefully phrased platitudes will do well enough. And the landslide's made him a darling, but that won't last, especially with Neville here to steal his novelty spotlight. And his press, if we work it right."

Neville shook his head quickly, wanting to head off any bright ideas about his own future as a press 'darling' immediately. "I'm not taking my shirt off. I'm married and besides, my -"

"Of course not." Justin scoffed. "I've shared a locker room with you." He flicked his fingers towards Neville's back, shuddering. "Despite being fit enough, we're in the twenty-first century. The romantic _idea _of a heroic flogging may get rid of knickers, but the reality would get rid of lunches. But you are just as exciting to the same demographic."

He wasn't sure whether to be flattered or insulted, nor for that matter which by what part of it, so he changed the subject, turning his attention back to Malfoy. "If he's a Black, he'd be related to you. How can you know so little about him?"

"Because his father's a scorch mark on the family tree," Malfoy said coldly, "which didn't exactly make us childhood playmates."

The revelation startled him, even as it made perfect sense, and Neville barely caught the outburst down to a shocked hiss. "He's SIRIUS' son?"

"Illegitimate, but yes." Malfoy sighed, resigning himself to the explanation, though the way he rushed through it betrayed his discomfort with the subject of his family dramas. "And yes, his grandfather and mine were brothers, but he's the product of the very dalliance that got Sirius blasted off the wall to begin with. About four years our senior, half-blood, raised by his Muggle mother, had no idea of the wizarding world until she died of cancer when he was nineteen and left him a deathbed confession. Fortunately missed the time when Daddy was a mass murderer and arrived right in time for Potter to be telling everyone Daddy had been a martyr, no one really knows about the next five years, and then three years ago he's do-gooding everywhere you turn and got elected in '06 by a disgusting margin."

Neville ignored the unspoken request to end the matter, his interest too keenly aroused by the connection, however faint, to the first Order. "That was eighteen months ago. What's he done since then?"

"Posed for a lot of pictures and stayed carefully away from anything controversial." Malfoy's patience was beginning to fray visibly, his syllables biting sharply. "He's biding his time, that much is obvious, but we don't know for what."

Justin had been watching the topic of their conversation closely, one hand stroking his chin thoughtfully, and his eyes glinted dangerously as he spoke almost as if musing to himself. "You know, they don't have to be rivals."

"Longbottom's nowhere near his political savvy and he couldn't give convincing rhetoric to a cabbage." Malfoy had been pushed further than Neville had realized, and he was startled to hear something very like the old schoolboy taunting to the unguarded, unpolitic insult. "Every pretty word of that revolt was the Creevey boy and his hero fetish. We have no leverage."

Justin's thin, aristocratic mouth offered a glimpse of teeth as perfectly white and even as a piranha. "He knew Sirius."

Neville had no idea what Justin was planning, but he didn't like it. "I barely met -"

Unfortunately, it was too late. Whatever it was, Malfoy had picked up on it, and the irritation was forgotten, replaced with his own brand of predatory anticipation. "And was there for the whole heroic demise, no less." The sneer was gone from his voice, replaced with a reveling sort of purr that was a lot worse.

They were both facing him now, and he felt a shivering reminder of a moment years before in a darkening clearing when a wolfpack had revealed itself. Steel locked with silver grey, tossing the pieces back and forth across and around their unwilling subject. "That tragic night at the Ministry."

"I was unconscious!" The protest had so little effect that it might as well not have been made at all.

"His parents and grandmother were Order."

"We never talked about it!"

"He's been to Grimmauld Place."

"After it was remodeled!"

"And of course he was roommates with Sirius' famous Godson and they're still mates and working together."

"Neither of you are even listening to me, are you?"

For the first time since the idea he still didn't know about had been conceived, Justin acknowledged him with a shiver of a laugh. "Of course we're not."

"An introduction is definitely in order."

Justin hesitated, glancing at his watch, then shook his head. "You and Susan will have to facilitate. I have above-ground business in ten minutes and I'm barely going to make it as is."

To Neville's great surprise, he grabbed his bag and started towards the door with no further farewell, already opening his Wizengamot robes to reveal a dark, closely tailored Muggle-style suit beneath. It seemed impossible that he could just walk out of something like _this _that abruptly, but at the same time the mere fact that Justin had done it suggested that it was perfectly appropriate somehow. Malfoy did not seem in the least bothered, but Neville couldn't help himself, calling after the retreating figure as loudly as he dared. "But…what about the vote?"

Justin stopped, turning back with an expression of deep patience, but the annoyance was unmistakable in the too crisp cut of his words and smile. "Sue will let me know if it comes to that before I'm back. I'll be only forty-one minutes. You'll be all right, Neville."

"It's his way, Longbottom," Malfoy was at his shoulder now, a hand not quite against his arm and had he not known better, he'd have sworn that he was trying to be reassuring. "We're all quite used to it, and he always seems to know well enough what's going on and never misses anything important."

"Certainly." Justin tipped his head amicably, though something in the back of his eyes was building towards panic as he fidgeted in his pocket, causing a light within that Neville recognized now to be the Blackberry's little screen. "But Susan won't be far, and Neville isn't as naiive as you think he is, Malfoy."

Malfoy didn't seem at all insulted or even taken aback by the implication, and Neville wondered how much of his cynicism had been justified in the thought that his old enemy was all too eager to see his old friend go. "I still need him as much as you do. And I'd venture there's less danger in my brand than your wings."

"As long as you remember that." He had expected an argument, a witty rejoinder, a dismissal even. What he had not expected was such callous absolution and a flash of something so alien to someone so eternally, impeccably civilized that he found himself doubting he'd seen it at all.

A tiny, curt bow from Malfoy that contained no actual deference but complete comprehension. "Impeccably."

And then Justin was gone, leaving the other two uncomfortably alone, though not for long. The door had not quite fully closed behind him when Neville heard the hurried click of heels on the inlaid floor followed by a sharp exhalation of frustration. "Damn, I missed him."

He had already seen Susan that morning as she had presented her proposal on the floor of the Wizengamot, but that had been different; a tiny doll on a stage that was just another part of the pageantry and pantomime. Up close, he had expected it to be like the aftermath of a Harpies match when the dizzying green and gold blur became just his friend Ginny again, but she seemed more a stranger now than ever. It wasn't just the robes or the severe hairstyle, either. This was not the sweet girl of his childhood or even the dedicated Samaritan of the DA; she was unmistakable and entirely a witch of keen, even ferocious power, a woman who could bring the most powerful figures in their world into effortless line with her most seemingly impossible whims.

Her words were light, but her eyes were the thorns of a steel rose as she held out her hand. "Good morning, Draco. You boys playing nice?"

Malfoy did not appear at all rattled by this version of his friend, and Neville realized that it was how he had grown accustomed to seeing her as he returned the handshake with a serpent's smile of his own. "I'll be introducing him to Avior after the debate."

Susan nodded as if it had been expected, even planned. "Any idea if he's for or against?"

"Nothing so far," Malfoy confessed, "but if it weren't very bad for my image, I'd vote against it myself."

One neatly penciled eyebrow quirked upwards a fraction, the only sign of emotion carefully schooled. "I'm surprised you'd admit that."

"Apparently you've forgotten already, but I told you, I don't care about the money." There was none of the expected offense in Malfoy's tone, despite the words as he gestured towards Neville. "Really, I'd take against because of you, Longbottom."

"I thought we were over the schoolboy vendetta bollocks?"

"No, he's right, and that's probably exactly what Avior is doing. Drawing you out. Merlin's cock!" The obscenity was all the more shocking for the detachment of it as she shook her head, making a small sound of self-reproach. "I should have thought of that."

"How important is this?" Malfoy's question was directed at Susan entirely, and she had stepped into Justin's place in this strange, alienating game so smoothly that he could no longer wholly believe that it hadn't been set up this way. Maybe it was paranoia, maybe they simply had their places in this world so much better and longer and more intricately than he could ever hope for, but it was at the same time all too plausible, and all he could do was watch as they fired the words back and forth; snippets of things barely teasing at so much else they didn't need to say.

"Principle."

"Then he's got to."

"I know, I know."

"You can?"

"Of course. And better this way."

"As long as I'm still seen where I need to be."

"As long as you keep your end, I've got mine."

"Always."

It was too much. Neville raised a hand, deliberately inserting himself between them and ignoring the matched looks of consternation this earned him. "You're talking around me again. Not fond of that."

"You're still an unknown, Neville." Susan sighed, reaching up to pat him soothingly on the shoulder in a disconcertingly maternal fashion. "This is the first thing that's been proposed where people are really going to be watching you. It's your DA, and by arguing against it, Avior puts you at wandpoint. He wants to see how you'll vote."

"Why's it even a question?" Neville freely allowed both his bafflement and rapidly growing sense of indignation to show. "Yes, of course I'm going to fight for my DA."

"No you're not." She corrected him tersely. "You're going to let it go. If he argues against, unless his reasons are just completely disgusting and insulting, you let it go, and you vote me down."

"Susan, I can't!"

"You can, you must, and you will." Malfoy's patrician features were set in lines of gravity startlingly deeper than he had seen since the door of a nursery barely over a week before, and there was no sign of the sneering childhood adversary now. "Susan presented well. If Avior argued for it, he'd look like he was kissing your arse, but he's not going to go against it unless he has something that sounds reasonable. He'd have just kept quiet if if wasn't good."

It was a further needling against his already frayed sense of order to the universe that Malfoy called her so easily by her first name, and Neville heard his voice raise more than he'd have like. "I don't care what his reasons are. I stand with the DA. You asked me what my agenda was; that's it!"

Malfoy was unmoved, crossing his arms tightly over his chest. "And if you genuinely care about them rather than using them as a platform, you'll let this one go."

"I won't -"

"Neville, calm down." He could hardly believe it, but she was actually scolding him, as if he were a small child refusing bedtime and about to earn a time-out. "He's right. I can afford to lose this. Avior is going to make his point, whatever it is, and you'll vote against me."

However much ado was made over Hufflepuff stubbornness, Neville knew that he had more than his own fair share of that trait when needed, and he had no intention of backing down. "And what will that do? Other than betray my people, that is, and I _won't _do that. Not for all the political games in the world. They trust me, and that _matters. _Even here!"

"It will tell people that they can't use the DA against you." There was no sympathy in Malfoy's explanation, but there was a strange something like understanding that he didn't want to think about. "Prove that your convictions and loyalties aren't their weakness. Prove that your vote can't be predicted by dangling them, or every other bill will use them to make you a puppet. Avior and every other wizard and witch in here are looking to see how predictable you are."

It almost made sense, which made him trust it all the less. "So I prove I'll abandon them?"

"You prove they can't be used against you, and then we get you in with him."

He could not hide the incredulous, disbelieving scoff. "So after this man argues against my DA, I'm supposed to go make friends with him?"

"You will," Susan agreed curtly, "because you know exactly how powerful it is to want to know about your father."

It was the last straw. Maybe he should have been more patient, maybe he should have listened, maybe he normally would have or could have done either or both, but having a stranger of a friend and a stranger of an enemy allied against him in this treason against everything he had been since he'd been anything at all and after so much…no. He couldn't do it. Without a thought for who might be watching or what they might say, he grabbed his bag from where it hung on the back of his chair, already unbuttoning the purple robes with his other hand. "This is disgusting. I'm leaving."

He made it less than three steps towards the door before Susan's hand was on his elbow, her fingers biting the nerve cluster there hard enough to stop him in his tracks. "Neville, wait!" It wasn't really the pain that halted him, nor the bizarre way that she did it so smoothly that no one would have guessed it for more than a common gesture, but there was something in her eyes that branded him all the keener. _Trust me._

They trusted him. But what was that if not returned, and who among them could ever be said to have earned it more? The bag sagged from his fingers, dropping to the floor with a muted, chastened thud. "I'm sorry," he offered weakly. "I just…."

She nodded, understanding too much as her fingers released, but her eyes did not let him go so easily. "I know. You're stressed, and that's the understatement of the decade. But I need you to think. What DO you know about Sirius Black?"

"I…" He did think, pressing himself for the memories, but they were few and far between, muddled up in so much that had seemed so adolescently important at the time that he was forced to shake his head in defeat. "I really am sorry, Sue. I didn't proper know him."

"But what do you know?"

"He wasn't a mass murderer." Neville shrugged awkwardly, bending down to retrieve his bag and just now realizing and hating how many people were staring at their little group. "But everyone knows that now."

Malfoy's eyes were narrowed suspiciously, watching him like the keeper of a half-tamed animal. "What about at the Department of Mysteries? What did you and he do there?"

"Together?" Had there even been a together? He didn't know, honestly. Doors and running and trying to keep track of each other and the fear and how much it had hurt when his nose was broken and how hard it had become to breathe after and the utter disorientation of it all…but threaded through here and there there were glimpses of what they wanted, maybe. Too-thin, too-frail arms corded like a ghoul with veins and sinews tensed to their limit. A face that had once been handsome contorted like a demon. Sparks and spells and so much almost but not enough to be sure of anything, and he could only spread his hands in a meager, useless offering. "I know he fought like hell for us."

It was enough, apparently, and Susan seized on it immediately. "Even when it meant going into the heart of the government that still wanted him back in Azkaban. You know he was incredibly brave and selfless, and that he gave his life and risked his freedom for six innocent, stupid kids who had gotten in over their head. You can give Avior that, genuinely." She paused, giving him just enough of a moment to consider but not enough time to think about it at all. "And if your positions were reversed, wouldn't you want to know that about Frank?"

Slowly, Neville nodded, not entirely sure what agreeing meant. "Yes…."

"Then put the politics aside for a moment. Don't think about those." She took his hand in both of hers, her voice dropping so low and intimate that they could have been alone in all the world. "It's doing the right thing to let him know just how bravely his father died. What happens next, we can take when it happens, and it doesn't make it evil just because it's advantageous. You've done this before. You had an agenda when -"

"Sit down." Malfoy's intrusion was like a bucket of cold water dumped over them, but he was grateful for the interruption, glad that he didn't have to hear what unforgiving compromise he had almost been reminded of. "Our recess is over. Time to stop speculating and see what MW Black actually has to say."

They took their seats along with everyone else, Malfoy conjuring an additional chair for Susan with a gallant flourish that allowed her to sit between them. Below, Black had taken his place on the speaker's dais, and Neville leaned forward as much as he dared, trying to get a closer look at the man he had apparently been appointed to something or other with. From this angle, it was impossible to accurately tell height, but he seemed fairly average, his build unremarkably fit beneath the loose robes, his hair dark and conservatively cut. He was clean-shaven, like most of the younger wizards, and his features held a kind of magazine-perfect symmetry that reminded him a little of Corner. Black cleared his throat, tapping the dais with his wand to ensure his words would be heard throughout the chamber. "If I may address the Wizengamot regarding Measure 3368 proposed by Mrs. Macmillan-Finnigan and sponsored by MWs Finch-Fletchley and Malfoy?"

The clerk did not look up, the transcription already underway. "You may, Mr. Black."

"Thank you." Then he smiled. And thirty years of legend abruptly made sense.

It was something he had only seen in pictures, and those, just as everyone had always said, did not do it justice. Whether Avior Black had ever known his infamous father, there was no mistaking Sirius' equally infamous smile. It was pure, raw charisma, mischievous and knowing and yet utterly without any trace of malice or superiority; a radiant, transformative thing that made a person almost ache to be excluded from whatever had brought it about. There was no trouble understanding how it could completely melt a witch's heart, and even Neville found himself hoping that this man would like him, approve of him before he caught himself, yanking harshly back to set himself firmly in his chair. Gran had spoken approvingly once of Frank's immunity to 'The Black Brat', and by Merlin, if Avior could follow in his father's footsteps on this, so could he.

Another smile, this one directed at the woman next to him with a genteel hint of a bow. "Before I begin, I wish to humbly thank and applaud Mrs. Macmillan-Finnigan. Her work on behalf of the survivors of the Battle of Hogwarts has been extraordinary, and the debt which the wizarding world owes to these individuals cannot be overstated. Their staggering bravery and sacrifice were the purchase price of our freedom today, and I offer my deepest respect to them, and to their Commander, MW Longbottom. Mr. Longbottom."

There was a pause, and Neville suddenly realized that the entire chamber - including Black - was looking at him with the clear expectation that he was going to do…something. Not fair. He could feel his pulse speeding up, his tongue suddenly stuck to the roof of his mouth in helpless, spotlit speechlessness, and he might as well have been thirteen and in Potions again with Snape staring at him after having asked something that he _knew _hadn't been in the reading with that slowly-growing smirk at -

It wasn't Hermione waving her hand this time, at least. It was Susan putting her hand on his knee under the desk, her voice pitched so low that it was barely a breath. "Just acknowledge him, Neville. A nod is fine."

He nodded once, and he knew it was stilted, knew he'd probably come off as bitter or stupid or something else because it had felt like his head hadn't been moving right and he'd definitely been blushing scarlet, but Susan gave him a gentle, reassuring pet and thank Merlin everyone was already looking away as Black began again.

"In a perfect world, it goes without saying that I would like nothing better than to see them guaranteed comfort and security in all things for the rest of their hopefully long and fruitful lives, but it we were gifted with such a world, their sacrifices would not have been necessary to begin with." Black stepped out from behind the dais, slowly walking the edge of the assembly, hands loosely clasped behind his back. The smile was gone now, but there was an artful regret instead, too much like the studied sigh of a lover dropping a single rose on a tombstone at the end of some stupid, melodramatic play. "Far from being perfect, the reality in which we live is one of struggle and sometimes, difficult choices. This measure has placed one of those choices in front of me today, and in front of all of us."

Neville folded his arms, reaching again for the suspicion that would at least turn the focus of his discontent away from himself. "He doesn't look like he's struggling to me."

This time, it wasn't gentle. She downright pinched him. "Shut up and don't pout."

It wasn't pouting. It was watching Black work the room, and it was like watching Seamus dance in the impossibly small circle atop a bar stool that night in the RoR, and all the mesmeric rhythms and cheeky flairs and perfect balance you could ever appreciate wouldn't bring you an inch closer to being able to do any of it at all. "We are currently carrying over three times what is considered a viable deficit. We are dangerously close to losing our credit rating with the ICW, and I don't need to remind everyone what a disaster would ensue then. Every department, every facet of the government is having to make the hard choices and the painful cuts as we fight to balance the budget, and we've recently had to INCREASE the funding to law enforcement to deal with the Nevermore murders despite the need for economy."

Neville frowned, leaning in to whisper to Malfoy. "Justin said that was a drop in the bucket, he -"

A stiletto heel ground down hard into the toe of his shoe, Susan cutting him off before the question could finish with a ventriloquist's hiss behind a thoughtfully pleasant mask that never wavered. "Shut. Up."

"In this environment, everyone needs to do what they can, and if we are going to ask ordinary citizens to do without and shoulder part of this burden, we owe them equality. Mrs. Macmillan-Finnigan, in addition to carrying both her own and her late husband's legacy of heroism, also inherited his substantial fortune. According to my data, Macmillan Textiles netted over two million Galleons of profit in the last tax year. Is that correct, madam?"

Black barely paused, and Susan knew her cue, knew her line, knew just how to say it and just how to smile and maybe, just a moment, just a little, Neville hated her for it. "It is, MW."

"Then I would think that a sum of…let me see?" He paused, checking the proposal. "One thousand, two hundred? Surely that's not going to place you in financial ruin?"

"As I indicated in my original proposal, with all due respect, it is the principle rather than the sum which concerns me." They weren't fighting, but definitely not agreeing either, and it all could so easily be so nasty except it wasn't. Or was it? If anything, they sounded more like they were flirting, and yet not. It made no sense.

"And in matters of principle, madam, I stand wholly in agreement with you. Principle unquestionably dictates that the government should cover these expenses. Reality, however, does not always make allowance for principle, and the reality right now is harsh." Another silent cue, and his eyes let Susan go to sweep expansively back around the room again as his voice rose a fraction. "This sum is twice what was allotted to Law Enforcement in the recent measure. If we have it to pass around, do they not need it more than this heiress as they try to protect our lives and property? Or perhaps it could relieve some of the cuts we've made to educational subsidies? Or save someone's job for another year? Can no one here think of a better use for this money - that we don't even have - than to pay for a millionaire's principles?"

A half second of silence that was just long enough to let you realize how much his voice had risen as he took a deep breath, bringing it carefully back down to the most charmingly rational steadiness that flicked a tease of a returned smile. "Now, I did say that this puts me in a difficult situation, and principles do matter to me. Despite my illustrious name, I'm far from wealthy, but if the DA could volunteer themselves for a worthy cause, I can assuredly do the same."

Abruptly he turned, crossing the speaking floor with two long strides, and then, to Neville's shock, Black actually went down on one knee, looking directly up at Susan as if expecting to be knighted. "With the Wizengamot as witness, madam, I would like to offer you - and to you, Commander Longbottom - a hundred hours of my own personal time for whatever purpose may best benefit our heroes and heroines."

Malfoy startled, albeit so slightly that he only knew it because they were sitting barely two feet apart, and the murmur under his breath was disturbingly appreciative. "Oh, that's brilliant…."

"Use me and my time however you see fit. My principles are yours. But I cannot support giving you other people's money when you have so much of your own." Black stood with a deep, courtly bow that swept first them, and then the Wizengamot at large. "My vote on this measure is nay, and I concede the floor."

Somehow, from the way that Malfoy was definitely pouting a little, standing ovations like the one that immediately followed were exactly as common as Neville thought they probably weren't. There was also - obviously even to him - not a chance in hell now of the proposal passing. He motioned needlessly at the backs of the MWs in front of them that now blocked their view of the floor. "What the hell do I say to that?"

"Officially, nothing, and no one else will, either, which means we'll have a vote soon." Malfoy replied, then stopped, craning his neck to see something around the wizards in front of them, then turning back with a grin of such unbridled Slytherin cunning that Neville felt his stomach turn a little. "But I'm going to arrange you to have lunch with him, so you'll need to come up with something. I recommend against strangling him with plantlife."

OOO

By the time he escaped the chamber, Neville was beginning to feel an intense envy for his own young sons. Neither Ernie nor Trevor would have seen the slightest problem with flinging themselves down on the polished parquet and simply screaming until everyone left them alone, but the option wasn't available to their father. He had to pretend that this was all just fine, that he was even lucky to have been able to beg a five minute break before he was supposed to meet Avior.

And what the hell was _that _all about?! He pushed open the door of the washroom just a little too hard, not caring if anyone noticed his mood as he strode to the basin and ran the cold water, splashing it on his face. Was he just being petulant? Well, yes, ok, he was definitely being petulant, but where was the line where he should or should not trust his instincts? They'd always served him well, and right now they were screaming not to trust Avior as far as he could spit, but Draco and Justin knew so much more about all of this, except they really weren't to be trusted, no matter how much he hated to say that about the man who was for all intents and purposes his brother-in-law.

He'd have to think about it later, probably call Hannah. She'd always been far better at understanding people and she certainly knew Justin more than he could ever hope to. For the time being, though, there was nothing for it except to do his best, be civil through lunch, and try not to get himself wrapped up in anything he didn't understand. Which more or less meant anything in this place.

His five minutes were ticking. With a long, heavy sigh, Neville toweled his face dry, checked briefly to make sure his robes were in order, and turned out into the hall again. At least it wasn't going to be another meal in the Wizengamot commissary. Avior had said that he preferred to support Wizarding businesses whenever possible, so they were supposed to meet in Diagon Alley and he just had to hope that he had enough money on him for wherever it was they were eating considering that the one place he knew he could dine free of charge was currently -

The sound of people trying desperately to keep an argument from being heard is often more intrusive than shouting; hisses and taut whispers abraded around the edges of hearing. Combined with the harsh clack of heels that did not belong to anyone strolling lightly and how quickly he recognized both the voices and the kind of argument they were having, Neville felt himself go pale as he glanced around, scanning the nearest doors in the narrow hallway. He had mere moments before they came around the corner, and the lessons of Hogwarts were still keen enough that he knew what happened to poor bastards who got caught in the middle of one of these. Private office. Private office. Private office. Conference room. There. Broom closet in conference room. Better!

Neville ducked inside with only an instant to spare, closing the door silently just as the footsteps halted almost exactly where he would have been standing. His heart was pounding, but he couldn't keep from laughing silently at himself. All this time, and there were certain things that could still make him act like a kid after all. Battlefield training, it seemed, came in more than one variety, though no less ingrained, and some people's fights were still that predictable down to their habit of stopping if the hallway turned a corner.

"Eight NEWTS, three MAGIs, five years in the Aurors, two of them overlapping with another four years of law school, four years as a practicing Solicitor, seventy-three percent success rate at prosecution, ninety-one for defense, and you still treat it like it's my little hobby! This isn't SPEW, Ronald!" Hermione's voice snapped across each word in palpable frustration, and Neville winced despite himself.

"That's not fair!" Ok, he knew that tone too. Ron felt he had a point in this one; he wasn't just holding his ground for the sake of not losing. That meant it was going to be messy. "You know I respect - "

"If you respected it, you'd take no for an answer."

"Then take it up with Harry. I've been assigned to stay with you twenty-four seven, and that means with you, not 'wait here, Ron, and I'll be back.'"

"I have clients."

"And we -" Ron stopped, and the silence confused Neville at first until he heard another set of footsteps approaching, then the conference room door opened and closed again as shadows passed over the crack of light. Ron and Hermione were only a few feet away now, and he could hear the exhaustion in his former roommate's heart, not just his voice as he started again. "Hermione, look, I've got a half-dozen murders, including my Dad and bloody near Mum too!"

The shadows flickered. She was pacing. "It's bad enough that I know damned well you think I've been having an affair, now I'm a serial killer?" Hermione hated vulnerable, and he knew how much she loved the Weasleys, so the deflection into an attack was exactly her style, yet it still hurt to hear. He had always hated hearing them argue, always been a natural pacifist and mediator despite the martial turn his fate had taken, but it was worse now that they were older. They'd gotten so much better at it.

Ron's response was ice, that moment of fragility gone. "This isn't about us."

"It's absolutely about us. Neville stands up for Finnigan, but -" The use of his name caught him off guard, but he caught the inhalation just in time for it to not be heard.

"Whoever told you that should have mentioned that I _did _stand up for you! I don't think you've done it, I think you're being framed!"

There was a long pause, and for a moment, it seemed as if Ron had scored a real point, but Hermione recovered quickly. "Then why don't you go find the person who's framing me instead of babysitting me?"

"The others are already doing that…_and _babysitting everyone else who's still on the hot list, for that matter. I'm your alibi."

"I don't need an alibi. I need to be able to meet with my clients privately."

"I can't let you out of my sight." Neville flinched. Bad, bad phrasing.

"These are sensitive cases, Ron. I've already lost too much time when you had me rounded up with the others at Sue's. You're just going to have to trust me." It was precise, final, the last words the slamming of a book, but Ron refused to back down, wheeling around for a re-direction of his own.

"It's a little hard to do that when you say you're working late at the office and I find a coat check slip from Le Fey in your pocket."

Her hiss of rage was audible even through the sturdy closet door. "What the fuck were you doing going through my pockets?"

"What the fuck were _you _doing going out to fancy restaurants - or _who _the fuck, for that matter?" Ron retorted fiercely, pressing hard into the moment's victory of her defensiveness. "You haven't exactly made it a secret that I'm not good enough for you any more."

"You haven't made it a secret that you're so afraid you'll never live up to what we did as teenagers that you've dropped out of life at twenty-eight."

The quiet hurt. Even in the darkness of the closet, Neville closed his eyes, biting his lip. Of course he and Hannah had their share of fights, they'd been together too long not to. He knew what it felt like, the particular kind of betrayed, righteous fury that came when the person who was supposed to be your most intimate ally was standing against you, but oh, it was for just that reason that there were some unspoken lines they simply never, never crossed with one another. And this, everyone knew, was Ron's.

He tried to scramble back, his words were hostile, growled, but the hurt beneath them seeped like blood under the door. "I'm staying home with the kids! Someone has to! And I'm still on the Auror reserve!"

"That's only so you can still be Harry's sidekick sometimes!" Her tone had shifted now, she knew she'd wounded him deeper than she meant, and if she only apologized…but no, this was her 'tough love' voice, she was going to keep going with this and there was nothing he could do to stop her, even if he dared try. "What are _you _going to do with yourself?"

"Right now? Tail you." He wished Harry could have heard, or anyone else who questioned how much Ron still loved his adopted brother even after their lives had taken such different paths. He was so determined to follow orders even when it was so clear that all he wanted in the world was to end this because she wasn't going to.

"Maybe you can learn to have a shred of ambition instead."

"Wishing you'd taken Zabini up on his offer after all? They say Slytherins have plenty of ambition." It was a cheap, feeble shot, and there was a chill scoff to her short laugh in return.

"Maybe he wouldn't be so jealous of me that he'd feel the need to find excuses to spy on me. But this isn't about Zabini. That's just stupid." Another pause, and thank Merlin she backed down now at least a little. She did love him, Neville knew that, and what she must have seen in his eyes would have been too much. "This is about you being scared and feeling like you need to control something here, and I understand that, but I'm not going to be it."

"I'm not trying to control you. I'm trying to guard you."

"I don't need a guard. And if you're not going to give me any privacy whatsoever, you are controlling me, whether you think so or not. And I do not like that. You know that." Hermione's voice dropped so low that he had to strain to hear, almost trembling at the edges. "You have the same ligature scars on your wrists as I do, and I know we have the same memories in our dreams at night. I will not be bound again, Ronald, and I will not be used. Not by the Nevermore or anyone else."

"Harry -" It was a plea, not an explanation.

"Tell Harry he can just trust me, then." He had clearly offended her by bringing the third member of their legendary trio into their argument when she had just made a confession Neville knew would have cost her dearly. The walls came up again with an almost audible snap. "Maybe friendship means more than marriage."

"I know you're trying to track the diaries yourself -"

"Then for God's sake, let me!" Neville was shocked that she did not argue, more still at the sudden abandonment of all efforts to remain quiet. She was very nearly shouting now, a shrill bite of panic betraying that Ron had cut unintentionally into something she was already afraid of. "Please! If you really want to catch this bastard, you've got to let me work."

Ron knew her well enough to know the meaning of that fear, and everything about his answer changed. He sounded like he had years ago, when the two of them had been one of the best pairs the Aurors had seen in a generation. "I will, but I'm coming with you."

"No, you're not." She hated to deny him, but she did, and the refusal sizzled into Neville's curiosity despite himself.

"Just watch me."

"Just try it."

CRACK!

"NO! GODDAMN IT, HERMIONE!"

There was a hollow, defeated thud as Ron's knees hit the floor, and Neville knew he couldn't just leave things any longer, no matter how awkward the explanations would be. Slowly, he eased the door open, making sure he wasn't going to step on his friend before he slipped out. Ron was, as he'd expected, on his knees, both hands fisted helplessly in his hair, but when he heard the door he let go, turning with an expression of perfect shock on his face that was bizarrely accented by the odd tufts of ginger that now stood out on the sides of his head. "Neville! I…."

"I'm sorry." His smile was tight, if genuine, and he knelt immediately to join Ron before he could stand, pitching his voice carefully low. "I didn't mean to eavesdrop."

Ron chuckled bleakly. "It's not eavesdropping when I think the whole bloody Ministry heard us."

"Any idea where she's gone?"

"If there's anyone who's better than Finnigan at disappearing, it's her." He made a helpless gesture, getting to his feet and waving one long arm vaguely around the empty room. "We spent a year playing that game with every Death Eater Riddle had, and she was 99% of the not-getting-found bits."

Neville nodded, well aware by now of how they had spent the year on the run while he and the DA took shape at Hogwarts. The two men began to pace together, Ron running his hand along the paneled walls as if he could find a clue to her destination in the pattern as it stuttered beneath his fingers. "Why don't you start with her clients?" Neville suggested.

"That'd be great if we knew who they were."

"Can't we get a search warrant for that?"

"Maybe." He paused, thinking about it, and Neville could see the spark of real hope appear in the blue eyes. "Yeah, I think Harry could. I'm just not looking forward to telling him I cocked up following my own wife." Ron made a face that was half-playful, then turned suddenly, darkly more serious. "Or that now, when we find her, we've got to try and arrest her on top of it for obstructing justice."

"He'll understand. He -" There was a warmth in his pocket, and Neville paused, pulling out the Galleon to examine the letters now glowing around the edge. For a split second, he had hoped that it might somehow be Hermione, but it was Susan.

_MW Blk asking where u r…?_

Neville checked his watch. Quarter after. He swore under his breath, but when he looked up again, the apology already on his lips, Ron was already nodding in understanding. "Where are you off to?"

"Lunch with Avior Black." They'd come around to the door again, and Ron opened it for him, following him out into the hallway as they started to move towards the lifts. "Apparently I'm supposed to tell him about his father."

"Didn't think you knew Sirius all that well."

"I didn't." Neville admitted. "Did you?"

Ron seemed to consider it for a long moment, then shook his head, shrugging with a casual air that didn't fool either of them. "Spent a few weeks with the bloke cleaning the heebie-jeebies out of his parents' place, yeah. That was pretty interesting."

Neville remembered a few of the more colorful tales of dark objects, rodent infestation, and cobwebs thicker than canvas that had regaled the tower room before they had the privilege of knowing exactly whose house it had been. At the time, he'd suspected they were mostly invented. Now, he figured it was mostly true. The really unbelievable things almost always were. "So what was he like?"

"Wicked good at Curse Breaking." Ron gave a bittersweet, lopsided grin that made him look a bit like his sister. "We only had to call Bill a couple times for the really…oh, no. No way. Please, please, Merlin, no…."

He knew what it was before he followed Ron's gaze to the ceiling, the hairs already pricked to alert on the back of his neck and hands. Neither man dared breath as it swooped and fluttered, vanishing to leave its horrible cargo neatly rolled at their feet. As if in a dream, Neville bent and took it, cracking the seal with his thumb. The delicate loops of the script were a pretty obscenity by now, all the moreso that they knew all too well who had just so curtly blown off the safety of numbers.

_more prominent than I expected, even for such a violent curse, and I am concerned that there may be some lingering effect that I had not forseen. Figg's tale of potential Parseltongue abilities revealed this summer bear this out further, and I will need to find some way to test the boy before I know if he can be of any use at all. With the other having shown no magic at all until so recently, and Minerva reporting that he still seems to manifest barely anything beyond a certain gift for gardening, it would be a dire affair indeed if Potter's son proved too corrupted. I wish I could say neither would be needed, but my suspicion that Snape's brand is still more than a scar has now been doubled by young Harry's mark, and thus I cannot accept the common comfort that he is gone forever. Let us simply hope he is gone long enough for me to make something of one of them, for there is much unknown about to what degree those such as us can steer the hand of fate, and in imbedding such a deep belief in one as powerful as Riddle, I may have necessitated the creation of my own Macduff if I ever hope to fully stop him. Alas, it is useless to speculate until I know what pieces I have on the board. _

Neville turned the fragment over, as if hoping for more on the other side that would clarify the unfamiliar name in the final sentence, but there was nothing except the faint shadows of the ink bleeding through what he only now noticed was a slightly different color from the others, as if torn from a different book. Pieces on the board. Is that all they had ever been? All, for that matter, that they still were? Or ever would be?

Ron cleared his throat loudly, and he startled, looking up with a sudden flair of guilt that he didn't quite understand in himself. It was an old, unwelcome feeling; the insidious, poisonous tendrils of Not Good Enough sprouting in the damp, exhausted corners of his mind from the spores of the entry. It frightened him, and he tried his damnedest to shove it down, folding the fragment in half more harshly than Tony would have liked of him and thrusting it out as if needing to be rid of it. "It's later," he said brusquely, "'91, I think. When Harry and I first came to Hogwarts."

There was a brusque snort as Ron took it from him, unfolding it and tipping it to the light, but his hands were shaking ever so slightly, his mouth too tightly wrapped around a smile that never neared the eyes already scanning the lines of script at voracious speed. "It's another fucking prelude to murder is what it is. We've got to alert everyone."

He lifted the Galleon with numb fingers, showing the message he had just sent from his pocket. "Already on it. Harry's just downstairs. We'll meet up and start trying to find Hermione. It'll be okay, Ron." Neville didn't know why he said the last part; habit, maybe?

He didn't believe it, and neither did Ron, breaking it into coarse pieces across a jagged laugh. "In what universe?"

"I promise, we'll figure this out." The empty platitudes were all he could find, and he hated himself for it. "We all know it's not her. She's definitely up to something, but I can't believe it's murder."

"Neither can I," Ron agreed warily, "and that's not just that I'm still in love with her."

"I know you are. She -"

Something had changed. The casual, easygoing slouch, the constant sense that there was a little bit of a grin somewhere just beneath the surface of Ron's mouth was gone. He looked at once older and younger at the same time, harder, and either Neville had somehow lost a little bit of height to the constriction of his back in the past decade or Ron had never really stood straight before, because he could swear the other wizard was fractionally the taller now. For the first time, Neville saw his sister in the spark of his eyes, and it frightened him. "This ends." It was a decree; beyond debate. "I don't care how good she is at hiding. I've known her since I was eleven and loved her since I was thirteen, and no matter what she thinks, I'm not a bad wizard myself when I put my mind to it. You get Harry?"

The new whatever it was flickered on the final what should have been order as he glanced at Neville, and his own instincts as a leader who had seen so many youths cross to steel-bitten adulthood made him reach out a hand to squeeze Ron's shoulder, adjusting his grip at the last instant when he remembered the gap still in the flesh there. "You can do this, Ron."

"I know I can." It was almost true, closer than it had been in memory, but it faltered on the unforgiving edge of a night ten years before when he had run, a night that Neville understood now he'd never really come back from. "I…I just hate it."

"Harry's meeting me halfway." There was a promise of support there, but also of trust. "Let us know if you -" Ron's face twisted, distorted in a shocked kind of convulsive shiver, but before Neville could ask, the silver figure burst through, not even seeming to notice that a living person had happened to be in the way of his entrance.

"Creevey!" Neville exclaimed. "How -"

"You're still my first loyalty, sir." Colin's eyes were huge, he seemed to be shaking, and if a ghost could possibly be described as pale, he was. "And I -"

"Who?" Ron interrupted roughly.

For a breath, it looked like the boy was going to break down in tears, but then the old mettle that everyone had been so surprised to find beneath the enthusiasm came through, transparent shoulders drawing back as his face set in lines of resolution alarmingly hard for his frozen age. "Headmistress McGonagall, Sir. I'm sorry. It's my fault."

Time seemed to stop. McGonagall. The word repeated in his head, refusing to connect to reality. It couldn't be connected to reality. Even more than Gran, it was a simple fact of nature that Professor McGonagall would live forever. Gran, at least, he had lived with, grown up with. He knew she was human. McGonagall was…well, she was _Professor McGonagall. _She took four Stunners to the back and taught class the next day. She dueled Dark Wizards a third her age and won easily. She survived a night that made wreckage of the strong and scarcely more than mussed her hair. She still never missed a Quidditch game, no matter the weather.

"That's impossible." Thankfully, Ron sounded just as incredulous at the absurd idea. "We had people there!"

"And I don't sleep, eat, wank, or need the loo." Colin snapped back harshly, but the anger was all clearly directed at himself. "It should have been me, but Hermione showed up looking like she was being chased by a legion of orcs and muttering something about 'no bloody time,' and she sent me to get Zach and Sally-Anne. Next thing I knew, there was a scream that just about took the windows out of the tower, and by the time anyone got up to the office, Hermione was gone and the Headmistress was dead and…" The rapid-fire account faltered, his eyes too young again as they turned back to Neville plaintively. "…and I came straight here."

It was something in those eyes and it hurt, but Neville was grateful, feeling the armor of the Commander slide smoothly into place again over the hole that could not have been gutted in his heart beneath. "How long had she been dead, could you tell?"

"Moments." The return of the Commander had brought the Sergeant back with it. "Her tea was still spreading on the desk where it spilled."

"Are Zach and Sally-Anne still there?"

"Sally-Anne is, and I put Rowan and Oison with her too, if you don't mind. It just took a second, and I thought…just in case, you know? Zach and Professor Weasley took off after Hermione."

He nodded, marking the information on the Auror's notebook he was very glad to have brought with him at the last moment this morning. "Thank you, Colin."

It was a dismissal, and Colin knew it, but Ron threw up a hand to stop him before he could fade. "Wait a - Hermione was a Gryffindor! Maybe he -"

"Brilliant, Ron! Colin, can you follow her?"

"No, Sir." The boy shook his head, grimacing. "School grounds, you, Harry, and Comicon. I didn't write the bargain, but apparently those were my life's priorities at the time, with Dennis so soon after and all."

Neville nodded, letting his matter-of-fact acceptance be reassurance enough that he did not hold the terms of the boy's death against him in the least. "Then get back to the school. Harry and I will be there shortly."

Ron had already taken several paces down the hall, calling back over his shoulder. "I'll be with Zach and Bill."

This time, it was Colin who stopped him. "Ron?"

"Yeah, kid?"

He licked his lips nervously, a little habit so human that Neville found it very odd to see in a ghost. "I don't think she did it."

"Thanks." A smile, more genuine than any of the three of them were ready for, and then Ron was gone, and with a look to confirm his orders, so was Colin.

Neville took a deep breath, letting urgency carry his long strides to the edge of a jog as he started off in the opposite direction back towards the DMLE offices. No time to worry about how fast or how awfully things had changed. He had to find Harry, had to help him coordinate this mess, get an investigation started, interview students, see if there were any - "Where are you going?"

He didn't even turn around to the sound of the disapproving, scolding question. "I don't have time, Draco. Something's happened. There's been another scroll and -"

Malfoy had no choice but to follow him or lose him entirely, but it did nothing to blunt the rebuke. "Do you have orders from Harry that you have to go do this, as an Auror?"

"No," Neville spat dismissively, "But -"

"If it's one of those scrolls, he knows too, and you're late to meet Black."

That did stop him, and so abruptly that he found himself mere inches from Malfoy when he wheeled around to face him, fists clenched to avoid something that even now he knew would be incredibly stupid. "I do not have time for your little Slytherin games, Malfoy! There's been -"

"Stop it!" To his amazement, Malfoy did not back down in the slightest, holding his ground nearly toe to toe, and there was nothing but contempt in the grey eyes. "I am extraordinarily done with your fucking moral superiority! My 'little Slytherin games' got me and my family through hell, Longbottom, and that was with the woman who still gives you cold sweats as not just my jailer, but my _Aunt_. And I got through it all without a drop of blood on my hands. Can you and your golden Gryffindor lion say the same thing?"

He almost rose to it. It almost became a fight. He didn't, to be honest, know what changed that. Yet it seemed like all the indignation that had built with Malfoy's tirade had burse like a bubble, leaving only a numbness in its wake that answered simply and softly. "It's McGonagall."

The conversation lasted nearly a minute, but it held no words. It was written in the fractional tension and release of shoulders, the flickering subtleties in the backs of eyes, almost imperceptible nods and nothing else needed to say _how _and _no _and _I don't know _and _no _and _I know. _Finally, it was Malfoy who broke the silence, motioning down the long corridor, his voice emotionless, his expression unreadable. "Go. I'll cover for you. But you have to be back quickly."

He had already started to move. "I just have to see this for myself. And say goodbye."

"Say it for me as well, will you?"

The request was genuine, and it halted him in his tracks, given that the only times he had ever known of Malfoy to have any direct dealings with McGonagall outside of the Transfiguration classroom had involved multiple uses of the words "detention" "fighting" and "Potter." None of which seemed to be things to be remembered fondly. "But I thought you -"

"She never cut a spoiled brat any slack." Malfoy admitted, and Neville tried not to show his amazement at the honesty of the self-assessment. "But she knew when to back off me too, and she didn't pretend it was all okay."

He nodded slowly, cautiously, still not entirely sure whether or not to believe that this was not another ploy. "She was an incredible woman."

"Yes." Malfoy paused, rubbing his hands together quickly, too obviously steeling himself for something before he looked up again. "I can't believe I'm going to say this..."

"Go ahead." Neville sighed. "I'm rapidly losing my capacity for surprise."

"All of this, the Nevermore, the ravens...how can I help?" The words seemed to sting his tongue.

"You're -"

"Volunteering." The masks were all in place again, but just a little too late, even if Neville was still trying unsuccessfully to process what he'd seen beneath. "Don't get too sentimental. I'm still not picking a boat; I just don't want to see anyone else thrown overboard."

"Including you." He pointed out, but then something else dawned on him, something he couldn't believe he'd never considered before. "Or your mother, who's exactly the right age for all of this."

The arched eyebrow wasn't a disagreement, but it was too expected for him to be comfortable with it. "Really, Longbottom, did I ever say it wasn't good for me?"

His answering smile was just as armored, the full return of the Commander who would have to be the only one who could handle this. "Why do you think I believe you? No one volunteers in politics."

TO BE CONTINUED


	13. Culpabilis

By all rights, he should have been able to Apparate directly to the school twice over; both as faculty and an Auror. That he couldn't - that he found himself outside the gates instead and looking down the important part of Sally-Anne's wand – was both frustrating and gratifying. They were doing this right, covering all the hoops, and he only just caught himself back from the proud smile at her as she confirmed his identity and performed the search. She worked for Harry now, she wasn't "his" anymore, but something about being back here made that so hard to remember, despite the obvious uniform, the passage of years, the unnatural glitter of her eyes as they shifted across the spectrum.

It was only worse when he passed through the gates at last, jogging quickly across the broad lawn towards the castle. He could almost have sworn he could still smell the bite of ozone that had been so thick in the air that night, hear the screams of spellcraft and pain, feel the grass too slick underfoot and crunched with glass. Neville shook his head harshly as he reached the doors, refusing to let the memories overtake him. There was no reason for it. No bloody reason.

But damned if he hadn't just touched his face in certainty that he would find thick scabs rather than smooth scars.

No. Absolutely no. Hell no. It was just – what had Justin called it? SPTDs? Flashbacks. Needing the Commander's headspace in this place and under the knowledge of death. That's all it was, and he could master it. Ignore it.

He closed his eyes, summoning all his self-control to demand his senses fall into obedience with what his mind knew to be the truth of now. Neville was not, even he knew, a person of any small amount of willpower, and by the time he opened his eyes again and started up the staircase, it was under control. He had lost maybe a few seconds, and that would have to do.

There were, oddly, no students to be seen anywhere, the entire massive building bizarrely deserted. Even the portraits seemed subdued, glancing at him in bitten-lip worry as he passed, and there were signs in every open-doored classroom he passed of a hurried but orderly departure. No furniture had been knocked over, no personal belongings abandoned, but lecture points were half-written on the boards, assignments half-completed on desks, and he did not hear another human voice until he was halfway up the tight spiral staircase to the Headmistress' office. It was Colin, and he sounded utterly enraged, mid-rant in a tone Neville had only heard once, shortly before Zach's memorable temporary departure from the DA. " – jog your memory or so help me I will have every single fucking one of you re-painted by Four Chan!"

He knocked as he opened the door, bracing himself for what he knew he would and yet still hoped he wouldn't find. "Colin?"

The ghost whirled around instantly, his cheeks slightly more opaque than usual in aggravation as he flung an arm towards the portraits surrounding the circular room. "Sir! I don't know what was done to them, Commander. A room full of witnesses and they all swear they don't –"

"As an occasional Assistant Herbology Professor, Longbottom, I'm sure you're familiar with the expression 'blood from a turnip.'" It caught him like a punch. Snape's rich, drawling voice, the arch sarcasm that he'd long ago learned to ignore, but not today. Not when he could see McGonagall's body slumped on the desk right through Colin. It struck a chord of blind, adolescent loathing and fear that snatched his breath, turning him on his heel with his wand out and up and crackling with sparks before he even knew what had happened.

He would have, could have, almost did blast the portrait into floating cinders, but Dumbledore raised a hand just in time, his voice like cool water on an open wound. "Neville…." It was a tone the old wizard had never used with him in life, all calm authority and sympathy woven together, and he was still breathing hard, his arm still taut as he lowered his wand, but lower it he did, and with a sudden new sympathy towards how Harry had been so easily lead. There was a small, satisfied nod of the brushstroke grey head, then the blue eyes behind the half-moon spectacles turned to the other painting. "I don't think he wants to hear from you right now, Severus."

It should have been entirely a rebuke of Snape, but somehow, Neville felt like he had also been chastised for his overreaction, and he took a deep breath, managing to regain himself yet again, even if he couldn't quite meet the black eyes and had to content himself with looking at the painted background of the potions lab. "Do you have anything useful to say?"

Snape seemed bored, or maybe he didn't want eye contact either, flicking a bit of nothing off his sleeve with a faint shrug. "Your mystery assassin has spent a great deal of time in this office."

Neville exchanged a look with Colin, the uncertainty palpable. "Headmaster?"

He had meant Dumbledore, but Neville realized even as he said it that the title could apply to over half of the portraits in the room, and it was actually Armando Dippet who answered. "He's right. A spell powerful enough to freeze every portrait, but no scorch marks even on the antique tapestries. They knew where every painting was _exactly."_

The door opened before he could give the matter any further consideration, and he was almost as relieved to see Harry as appeared to be the reverse. "Neville! How long have you been here?"

He checked his watch before he answered, grateful to have done so when he realized how dilated his sense of time had been. "Maybe a minute."

"The portraits – "

Colin made a face, crossing his arms tightly. "Frozen. No help." It was odd the way that one's mind noticed everything except things it really didn't want to think about, and just now, Neville found himself wondering just why it was, if the lad was transparent, the gesture still effectively hid the wound on his chest.

Harry nodded vacantly, not really listening as he seemed to glide across the room, his footsteps soundlessly absorbed by the rich carpeting. Neville wanted to stop him, to return to the useless argument with Snape, ask Colin exactly what he'd meant by Four Chan, anything to prolong the inevitable. But there was nothing for it, and once again, Harry had proved himself the braver man and the better law enforcement officer. He circled the desk slowly, bent to look beneath it. There was the snap of a glove like a hex, three fingers extended to a motionless neck, a long pause, and green eyes rising up to meet his with a look like falling from a cliff. "On the count of three," Harry whispered roughly, "we punch each other as hard as we can, see if we wake up."

Neville had joined him by now, notepad out like a shield as he examined the desk around her. There didn't appear to be anything volatile or unusual, the very opposite of Shacklebolt's case. The tea-soaked papers under her hand were a simple requisition authorization, her signature half-complete. Milk, eggs, chalk, toilet roll, laundry soap…the mundane workings of boarding school administration given a surreal weight by so inappropriately winding up this incredible woman's final act. "Same as all the others." Neville heard himself say mechanically. "AK. No sign of struggle. The only real difference is the freezing of the portraits; an action taken to nullify potential witnesses."

"They've done that before too, though." Harry's voice was equally numb. "With the Jones hit. They stayed very carefully just out of the angle of the CCTV."

In the corner of his eye, he could see Colin pacing, arms still wrapped around himself, and his voice was so tight that he sounded as young as his brother. "I know it's a crime scene, but do we have to leave her like that, guys? It's not right."

Softly, the gesture almost paternal, Harry let one gloved hand pass lightly over her grey head without quite touching, not so much as mussing a single hair. "We have to get pictures first."

He was right, of course, but oh, so was Colin, and he just couldn't do it any longer. He had known her for as long as he could remember. She'd been Gran's friend, her Maid of Honor, his Godmother before she was ever his teacher, his Head of House, his anchor to the ability to trust in anyone of authority when the very concept had been vitriol. He cupped her face gently, turning it to rest to the side rather than straight down.

"Neville…."

Harry's warning was kind, but Neville ignored it completely, wiping clean the blood that had burst from her nose when she had struck the desk, closing the blue eyes for the last time. "Write me up."

There was a brief pause, then Harry took the hood of her robe and pulled it over her head, meeting Neville's look across the body with his voice casually lying about the tears falling freely down his cheeks. "Too much paperwork."

"Maybe Hermione saw them, Commander." Colin offered hopefully. "Maybe she's after them now. Maybe she's gonna –"

The name snapped Harry's head around from the grief-stricken tableau. "Hermione?"

"Harry," Neville said carefully, knowing full well the danger of the ground he was treading, "she ditched Ron. Not three minutes before this scroll came."

The still-boyish lines of his face had hardened utterly now, his demeanor all but daring Neville to continue. "What do you mean 'ditched Ron'?"

"I mean I overheard them in the Ministry." He kept his tone neutral, following Harry out from behind the desk and across the office. "They were fighting because she didn't want to be tailed –"

Harry had stopped at the soaring windows that overlooked the grounds, pressing both palms flat against them and allowing his forehead to fall between, glasses skewing unthinkingly to the side. "I kind of expected that. I was hoping she'd be more reasonable, but…" The word trailed off into a long, weary sigh, but as much as Neville wanted to leave it there, he couldn't.

"She ran off, Harry. Disapparated. And then Colin saw her here."

One eye cracked open, the window abandoned just enough to allow the glasses to be readjusted. "Colin?"

"I was near the entry hall with Rowan and Oison," he nodded, "and we were trying to –"

Why Neville hadn't noticed before, he couldn't have said. He should have. Maybe the news about McGonagall had just hit his brain like a backfired wand, maybe he'd still been reeling from what he'd witnessed between the Weasleys or nearly a month of mental and physical exhaustion, but the names had slipped past somehow, and now they hit him with a frigid shock up the spine that pricked every hair on his head. Rowan. Oison.

There were no current students with those names. Those were very distinctive names. Distinctive names that belonged to young soldiers long dead and not on the _very _short roster of DA ghosts which, as far as he knew, encompassed exactly two: Colin himself, and under extremely particular circumstances, Ernie.

"Oh, _fuck_!" His exclamation was anything but eloquent, but Harry seemed to have made the same realization at the same moment.

"When did they get here? How long? _Why_?"

"We don't know." Colin admitted. "THEY don't know. That's what we were trying to figure out when everything happened. It's getting pretty crowded on my side of things." He shifted nervously, but it wasn't for any fear of the living, and the sign of any discomfort in the notoriously courageous youth only underlined Neville's sense of foreboding. "Kids have been hearing things at night – things that I can tell you are echoes of the battle – and now Rowan and Oison have shown up, and the Bell Twins swear they got a glimpse of their sister yesterday, Hufflepuff dorms smell like char…something's happening, and I'm not anticipating ponies and rainbows."

"A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,  
The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead  
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets…"

No one had heard Justin enter, and he was still clad in his Muggle-style suit beneath the Wizengamot robes, but his Auror's notepad was in his hand, the official evidentiary camera hanging from a strap around his neck. Harry held out a hand in welcome, chuckling darkly. "You do know how to make an entrance, Justin."

The dark, sleek head dipped a gracious acknowledgement of far more than welcome as Justin returned the handshake. "Draco told me."

Neville sucked in a tight, angry breath. "I can't –"

"As an Auror." Justin interrupted quickly. " Granted, he also told me to make sure you were back in under fifteen minutes, but I'm going to ignore that part and apologize for the bit of poetry there. I just…I heard what Colin said and I…I felt it too when I came in." There was a look in his eyes for which the only possible word was genuinely _haunted_. "I heard the laughter of old friends."

"As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,  
Disasters in the sun; and the moist star,  
Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands  
Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse.  
And even the like precurse of feared events,  
As harbingers preceding still the fates  
And prologue to the omen coming on."

Harry's recitation was letter-perfect and Neville tried not to stare, something he knew he was managing better than Colin – who was openly gaping – but not nearly as well as Justin. Harry coughed nervously, taking off his glasses and rubbing them on his robes in a moment of sudden self-consciousness. "The rest of Justin's bit. Hamlet...or actually, I think that part was Horatio."

Justin gave a small, not entirely theatrical bow. "I'm impressed."

"I'm not Hermione, but I'm not completely uncultured." He smiled tightly, "Dudley hated anything that smelled like thinking, and I got bored a lot, so I stole the real books sometimes while he was reading Goosebumps."

In almost seventeen years of various levels of friendship, Neville had never figured out how to properly respond when Harry talked about his childhood with the Dursleys, but fortunately, Justin knew precisely when to change the subject. "Have you found Hermione?"

All traces of bashfulness vanished, the glasses instantly replaced. "How did Draco know about that?"

"He didn't." Justin clarified. "Sally-Anne did when she searched me on the way in."

"Well," Harry shot a reproachful glance at Neville. "I still don't."

"I was getting to that part." Colin broke in. "We were trying to sort out what was going on with Rowan and Oison and…." He took a deep breath – habit, Neville supposed – his words picking up speed. "…so we heard someone Apparate at the gates and then they were just blown open and Hermione came fucking _sprinting_up the walk and Zach tried to grab her and…Commander, I've never seen her face like that. She looked like she was going to tear his eyeballs out with her teeth. She goes 'there's no time!' and he let her go. Shock, I think, really. She runs up the stairs so fast she almost trips over, and we're looking at each other like –"

"'What in the Zaphod Beeblebrox was that' were your exact words, Creevey. Bafflingly eloquent as usual." The interruption came from directly behind them, and even had he not recognized the Welsh accent or been fully aware that there was no possible door or window there and that they were seven stories up, the sudden drop of temperature would have been enough for Neville to know that another ghost had joined them even before he turned.

"Oh, _shit! _I think I'm going to be sick." Neville had seen Rowan's body, helped search her pockets for anything to send back to her parents, but without the adrenaline and numbness of the morning after, even he had to admit a certain kinship with the more graphic reaction that currently had Harry parchment-white and clutching the edge of the desk.

Her face was horribly mangled, but even the broken teeth and jaw were still distinctly bent in a grin. "Nice to see you too, Potter." One eyebrow quirked up towards the short, spiked blonde hair. "Didn't stop by the morgue, I take it?"

Harry had fought down the initial gag response, standing upright again, if shakily as he passed the back of his hand across his mouth. "They had you under a sheet. I didn't go looking, no."

The grin was gone now, replaced by a look that was equal parts fear and hope as she shifted from one foot to another, the gesture nightmarishly girlish in context as a broken rib gapped in and out of the tear in her shirt with the motion. "Did…um, did Ginny make it?"

"Yeah." Harry nodded, holding up his left hand dazedly to show his wedding ring. "She…uh…married. She and I. Baby yesterday. Third." Rowan smiled again, positively beaming this time, both disfigured hands clutched to her mouth as her eyes welled with tears of relief.

Neville reached out, steadying Harry as the young woman's hideous condition and potent reaction truly connected for the first time with a decade of being told 'she gave her life.' He knew there would be the need to seriously talk about this later – maybe with Rowan and Ginny, maybe not – but for now, he let himself take over, meeting the eyes of his former Sergeant as evenly as if neither her state of living nor how she got that way mattered in the least. "Is Sally-Anne okay, Rowan?"

She snapped immediately to attention, all but throwing a salute as she nodded sharply. "Sir! She wanted to let you know she's confirmed the Apparation signature at entry, as well as the one used to demolish the lock on the door at the bottom of the staircase here. They're both Hermione. She's spreading the search for more evidence to the rest of the grounds. No news yet from Zach and the Weasley brothers."

"Pull them in." Harry took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, and Neville was impressed that he seemed to have recovered fully, shaking off the comforting hand and adjusting his robe crisply. His voice was all business again, completely dispassionate. "Hermione can take care of herself. We've got to secure the school completely. There are too many potential victims here. Justin, find Flitwick, Sprout, any other surviving faculty. I want you to put them under personal guard."

"I don't have time, Harry." Justin argued. "I'm supposed to be at –"

"Professor McGonagall is dead not six feet away from our little discussion, Justin. She's not even cold. Harry's eyes flashed a keen warning. "Are you an Auror or not?"

There was a moment's hesitation, but then the decision was made, the purple robes already being unclasped and shrugged off. "I'll give Draco my regrets when I see him next. Apologies that I don't have my uniform at hand. Do you know where I'll find the Professors?"

Colin pointed to his ethereal comrade. "Ro?"

"Great Hall." She informed them. "We've been doing sort of a consolidation-evacuation. Getting everyone together. Safety in numbers. Students and Profs all there. There's just Herbology and Magical Creatures to grab now."

Justin was already halfway out the door, the Wizengamot robes now tightly folded and bundled under one arm. "On my way."

"Right." Harry checked his notes, tapping something there with his wand. "I've sent to the DMLE for scene processing. They should be here within a few minutes. Nev, let's you and I start a grid for any other spell residuals that we might have missed."

"Harry."

"Make sure you get –"

Neville didn't want to do this. He had to do this. "_HARRY_!"

Everything about the other man's face was silently begging in the name of mercy, of friendship, of too much to bear thinking about as he looked up from the notes. "Nev, _please_…."

"We've got to find her."

Harry turned another page of the notebook, burying himself in it again, nodding too quickly. "Like I said, she can take care of herself."

"To arrest her."

Now he did stop. The notes were set on the edge of the desk, both hands folded coolly behind his back, his body language immovable, his eye contact ironclad. "No."

He could never completely understand what Harry was going through, even if he had tasted the bitter edge of it on Belfast rain and cheap whiskey, but it didn't matter. Compassion could only take them so far, had perhaps taken them too far already. He could try to temper the words with consideration of tone, but he could not back down. "She's our top suspect at this point. She has to be."

Harry did not budge. "I said no, Longbottom. She is not a person of interest."

"She's a lot more than a person of interest!" He did not mean to raise his voice, but even from beneath the makeshift draping, McGonagall seemed to be staring over his shoulder – all things considered, he supposed that wasn't even out of the question – and Harry's absolute refusal to see the obvious was grating his temper. He did not want to wonder, could not let himself wonder if any of those already lost might have been preventable, but letting it go on was another matter. "Harry," he pushed, "I don't care that she's one of your best friends; she's a person of means and opportunity in _every single one_!"

"But no motive." Harry insisted, his own temper starting to cast a glowing edge to his still-calm reply. "And no fucking possibility."

There was a long minute's silence, but the stalemate was broken by another burst of silver into the tower room. "Commander! Rowan sent me!" This time it was a boy who looked barely more than a child, his limbs oddly angled and the back of his head too flat and too wet-looking. Euan. Oh, dear Merlin, how did fourteen get so much younger from further away? Were they all going to come back now? Was he going to have to face each sin, each stolen life in turn?

Colin gestured at the new arrival, then at Neville, the corner of his mouth turned up in a terse attempt at humor as he mimed a telephone with his thumb and little finger. "It's for you."

This time, it was Harry who could speak when he could not. "Hermione?"

A terse shake of the transparent head. "Hagrid, Sir."

There was something about the way the boy said it. Neville and Harry looked at each other, and he could feel the thick knot of disbelief forming in the pit of his stomach again.

It was Colin who found the words first, or at least enough of them. "You mean –"

Euan nodded. "When they brought in the students a couple minutes ago, he asked to stay back to pen up the animals, and then…people heard the noise. Heard him go down. He's…uh…big."

No ravens. No diary. They were stepping it up, whoever they were. He could see the same realization written in Harry's eyes, firing deductions sharp over emotions there was not yet room for. "And no one's been able to get out since the Headmistress was found except Bill and Zach, which means –"

"They're still here."

"LOCK THIS PLACE DOWN HARD! If there's any form of no one gets out that hasn't been done, do it!" Harry's hands slammed together like the crack of Apparation and he turned hard on his heel, wand flicked out of his sleeve to yank the plans of the castle from the tall shelves. He was on his knees even before they had fully unrolled, a brilliant stag leaping past Euan's ear so closely the the boy jumped aside in surprise. Harry didn't care. "Neville, no one knows Hogwarts like you. I'm calling everyone. We tear this castle down stone by stone and cut down every tree in the forest if we have to."

Euan leaned forward nervously, twisting his shirttail as he glanced from Neville to Harry and back again. "What about us?"

"Anyone who forgives me, we can use," Neville replied quickly, "especially people who don't worry about walls." Euan nodded, gone at once, and he shouldn't have been so relieved to be back down to just the one ghost he was accustomed to as he joined Harry on the floor.

Harry's fingers were racing over the lines of the blueprints, seeking openings, opportunities, possibilities. They hit the basement, the dungeons, scrabbled to the kitchens and slammed down on an idea. "WINKY!"

The little elf appeared almost in the middle of Colin, who leapt aside just in time. She didn't seem to notice, but at least she didn't appear drunk at the moment as she swept a deep curtsy, ears flapping. "Harry Potter, Sir?"

"We have an intruder in Hogwarts. They murdered the Headmistress and a lot of other people. You and the House Elves have to help us find them!"

It was strange that even as he was trying to convince Harry of the need to treat her as a potential murderer, Neville cringed slightly at what Hermione would think of her friend taking that tone with Winky, although she didn't seem to mind at all. If anything, shock instantly chased to furious resolve as she noticed the body at the desk, and her heels clapped together in the sharp salute that he knew had been learned from Dobby in the days of H.E.L.P. "Yes, sir! At once!"

Colin was over by the doorway now, whispering something to the Grey Lady who had stuck her head directly through the wood, and Neville pitched his voice low, trying not to let him hear. The last thing he needed - no matter how much it had saved their collective arses last time - was Colin deciding there was cause for an encore of his previous legendary anti-evacuation. "Harry, we have to do something about the students. Not again."

"You're right." Harry agreed, and thankfully he also seemed to understand the flick of Neville's eyes towards the silver figures. "But we can't evacuate. Moving that many people out, it's too easy for the Nevermore to escape at the same time."

"But the Nevermore could be among them right now," Neville argued, "even if they don't use it to strike. Just hiding in the group."

The Grey Lady vanished before Harry could answer, Colin floating back out of the way as Sally-Anne opened the door, face flushed and breathing hard from what had obviously been a hard run up all seven floors of stairs. "Hagrid's definitely dead, Harry," she gasped. "And it's _definitely_ the same killer. We've searched his hut thoroughly and the surrounding pens. Including the damned Skrewt pens." She leaned against the doorway in what he assumed was an attempt to catch her breath until she reached down, lifting the hem of her Auror's robe to show a nasty, blistered scorch on the side of her calf. "I've got a Skrewt burn for good old times, but no one's there, and I've closed off the area."

"Lets assume they're invisible then." Harry motioned her to join them, moving aside to give her space at the plans. "There's plenty of ways they could be doing that. They can't be Apparating on the grounds, so we know they were out at the hut just minutes ago and they aren't there now. Call them young and fit and fast. Where can they be?"

"They'd stay away from the lake." Neville waved his wand, fading that section of the image to a mere shadow of ink and letting them see the remaining possibilities more clearly. "Mud and water are too revealing. Likewise the forest. It's too thick and even invisible, people can see you pushing through the underbrush too easily and too many things in there could smell you just fine. They're either in the castle, the greenhouses, the Quidditch Pitch, or trapped out on the lawn." The remaining areas glowed at his words, the outlines throbbing a hot, heartbroken red.

"Zach and the Weasleys are back." Sally-Anne offered, taking the opportunity to cut away the leg of her trousers from the burn. Neville helped her numb it as she plucked the bits of fiber away that had stuck to the weeping injury, knowing it wasn't severe but wishing nonetheless that Demmy and Brian weren't half a world away.

"And Justin says to report that the Great Hall is secured." Neville hadn't realized Rowan had rejoined them until she spoke, though now he saw her standing at attention at the top of the stairs. "He has everyone back to back and arms linked with no room for anyone to hide between them, and everyone's had their identities confirmed by at least two other people with secure questions."

Harry smiled, shaking his head in fond amazement. "I love that man. He's the definition of posh twat and I hate his schedule, but God can he come through when I need him." The amusement suddenly froze, twisting Harry to face her on the wide-eyed enthusiasm of a potential breakthrough. "Does Hagrid have a new dog?" Harry asked suddenly. "Acid-breathing chicken? Anything that can track?"

"Dunno," Rowan shrugged, looking to Neville as if in apology and making it everything he could do not to react when it brought her collarbone through the ruins of her left shoulder. "Commander, I've been back on this side of reality for maybe an hour."

"Find out." He tried to make it sound like he was backing Harry, hopefully smoothing the issue of who, exactly, Rowan was willing to take direct orders from. "How many DA do we have back?"

"Colin, me, Oison, Jenny, Morag, Euan, Owen, Wayne, Katie, Lavender, and the Patil twins, though Parv's just a voice."

The list, recited so matter-of-factly, staggered him. But this was no time for feelings. He simply jotted the names in the initial-based shorthand they had used for the Galleon, surprised that it was no effort at all to remember each and every one. "Right. All searching?"

"Yes, Sir."

"We leave the castle to them." Harry confirmed, having made his own notes and changed the castle's glow from red to amber before looking up to the young witch. "What was your name again, love?"

"Rowan Glynnis, Sir."

Harry's eyes widened, and he snapped his fingers in sudden realization. "Glynnis Pitch! Harpies! I should have –."

It was a glorious kind of ache to see Rowan's reaction to the off-handed comment, the way she literally screamed with delight, bouncing up on the tips of her toes in a wiggling dance of sheer bliss that made Harry laugh and Sally-Anne close her eyes in pain before she calmed down again. "Sorry…I, uh, you wanted something?"

Harry's smile was deep and kind, no longer in the least disturbed by her charnel house appearance. "Yes, Miss Glynnis, namesake of Glynnis Pitch, home of the Holyhead Harpies; you're in charge of having the undead DA search the castle, unless Neville had a different hierarchy."

She saluted again, to Harry this time. "We've got that covered."

"Nev, I want you to take Bill and go for the greenhouses." Another tap of the wand turned those, too, to amber. "It's too dangerous to be searched by anyone who doesn't know what they're doing. Ron and I will take the grounds with Tony and Saz and whoever the DMLE sends us. Any passages still open?"

"Only the one to the Hogs Head," Sally-Anne reported. "That was restored for an emergency evac route and history. The rest were permanently closed."

"But the only way to get to that is through the RoR," Harry mused, "and they sealed that off after you showed them just how much epic shenanigans a kid could get up to in there. DA survivors and faculty only, isn't it?"

Neville hesitated at the gap of experience between how things were and how things were supposed to be before answering. "Theoretically."

"Then that's lowest on the list of possibilities and we check it last." Harry snapped the plans shut and returned them to the shelf, already on his feet and helping Sally-Anne to hers.

Neville paused only to give a last, respectful nod to McGonagall, touching his thumb to his brow in a gesture he had learned from his other mentor, Sir Kaye, but seemed oddly appropriate now before following Harry out the door. Harry was already halfway down the stairs, as maddeningly nimble as ever, and he raised his voice a little to carry after, hoping it wouldn't come off as confrontational. "Hermione has access."

"Don't start with that again, Nev." Harry's voice was casual, but the warning was clear. "I need you in that greenhouse. Now go!"

There was no time for arguing and really, no point. He resisted the temptation to take any of the remembered shortcuts through the castle, not knowing if they were still there after the reconstruction or how much he could trust to memory, and by the time he reached the greenhouses, Bill was already waiting for him. The other man looked exhausted, as though he hadn't slept at all, but though he was leaning heavily against the glass, dark circles standing out against pale skin and red-purple scars, his brown eyes gleamed indefatigably.

Neville greeted him with a terse gesture of his wand, immediately checking the locks on the greenhouse door, though finding them sealed with no signs of tampering wasn't nearly as reassuring as it should have been. "Any luck finding Hermione?"

"No," Bill replied darkly, his voice raspy and raw. "but we've got the kids hidden. Ron didn't want her to be able to use them as hostages."

"At least someone's thinking of her as a suspect." He circled the building, checking the other doors and testing each window that had the option of opening.

"It's killing him, Neville. If she's done this, I'm taking the bitch apart with my bare hands." There was something about the way he said it that was so unmistakably not hyperbole that Neville stopped, his wand still on the lock to the potting shed.

"Bill, the moon was just last night." It was a warning, but also an offer of understanding. "Watch yourself there."

The ginger head shook firmly, and Neville shivered to realize that while his illness may have been responsible for his rough appearance, his gaze was irreproachably lucid with no trace of the feral. "My dad. My mum. My baby bro. My _family._Not my lycanthropy." There was a pause, a moment of understanding passed between them more complete than either was comfortable with, but at last Bill broke it off, turning away to stare at the glass structure with its lush tangle of greenery thickly visible inside. "So how do we do this? Anyone could hide in here."

"Not for long. You and I just need to cover the exits and be ready if they come through the sides." Neville had already opened the potting shed and checked the gauges on the intricate maze of piping inside, turning valves, entering codes, and adjusting levers. "I've got full atmospheric controls in here and a faculty override."

"What are you doing?"

Another twist, a tap of the wand to set it all so that it couldn't be changed without his authorization, and he ran out of the shed, covering the back door as he gestured Bill around to the other side. He raised his voice so that Bill could still hear him, aware that it could only help if there _was_anyone inside to know what they were in for. "Plants will be just fine with a pure Carbon Dioxide atmosphere. A human, however, not so much, and my babies can't make that much oxygen before our Nevermore would find it unbearably uncomfortable. A nice pesticide mist won't hurt either."

Bill laughed terribly. "Don't kill 'em, mate."

"I'm not picky right now," Neville confessed, pulling out his watch. "Give it five minutes."

It seemed an eternity to watch the second hand crawl its way around each cycle, the minute hand edge fractionally further along with nothing happening, not the smallest sign of motion ruffling the foliage within. He'd known, really, all along that no one was in there, but he hadn't realized how badly he wanted to find someone anyway. Finding them in the greenhouse would mean they hadn't been able to take the passage.

At last he heard Bill's voice, almost exactly at the same moment that the watch clicked to five minutes passed. "Well, if they're in there, they're dead, dying, or incredibly unconscious, but they won't be able to deflect this." The greenhouse flared with the bouncing, branching light of _hominum revelio_, but it careened from place to place aimlessly before fading completely, and the answer was sealed.

"Empty." Neville felt sick, pushing it away in resolve as he shot a quick spell to melt the locks into formless slag. "I'm keeping the controls locked and the greenhouse sealed so it can't become a refuge. Let's find Harry."

It was Ron, however, whom they encountered first, finishing a sweep of the lakeside grounds with Zach, Sally-Anne and a team of three Enforcers. Bill grabbed him into an immediate, tight embrace that he squirmed out of almost at once as if he were still an embarrassed eleven year-old, smoothing down his hair as he turned to face Neville with an odd grimace. "There's dead people everywhere, Neville, mate. Gory, ucky, extremely disturbing dead people. Your dead people."

For some reason, he had to smile. "I know."

Ron smiled back, but there was something forced about the perpetual good humor. "If we're still shacking up at Zach's, I'm just saying, there will be nightmares."

"For most of us, I think," Bill agreed. "Any luck?"

"The DA's got the castle tight." Sally-Anne said. "We've swept the grounds full circle. Pincer formation, no getting away from us. Harry's starting to think they're like hiding on the roof or sommat. He and Tony are up there on brooms." She motioned up to where Neville could just now see the two figures dark against the blue of the afternoon sky, swooping low and trailing streaks of light from their wands.

"Could they have flown out?" Ron suggested.

"Not since lockdown," Neville pointed out, "and that was before Hagrid."

"RoR?"

It was nominally a suggestion, but no one was fooled by Sally-Anne's too-light tone, and Neville took a deep breath, steeling himself for what they all knew they were going to find as much as for another go at the stairs. "Let's go."

He tried not to notice the ghosts as they passed through the castle. He tried to focus on the case, on possibilities where the Nevermore could be hiding. He tried not to see that was Lavender there, somehow still so much more beautiful than memory had been able to hold despite her torn throat. That was Morag, tearing through an empty classroom like a Scottish Valkyrie. And everything he'd wished about Demmy being here was completely revoked now, because there, waving at him with her one remaining arm as they turned for the seventh floor stairway, was Anwen. Back again and still willing to fight for him after he'd cost them everything. It was a kind of love and honor that would have brought him to his knees had there been time. But there wasn't. Not now. No more than there had been time to say goodbyes.

The seventh-floor corridor had been completely remodeled, the doorway permanently visible now, a little plaque of some kind of memorial that he'd never bothered to read bolted to the stone near the lintel. It didn't matter. He would have been able to find it in his sleep. He was wondering which of them should try to open it, if it still favored him, but Sally-Anne was the first to reach it, and she stopped as if burned, her hand hovering over the knob. "It's been opened. The latch is turned."

She ran her wand over it, checking for spell residue, but Ron's face was already hard and set when she turned around, the picture of sympathy. "You don't have to tell me," he said coolly, "I know what her magical signature feels like better than any of you."

Sally-Anne reached out anyway, putting her hand gently on his arm. "Ron, I'm so –"

"Shut it." He shrugged her off harshly, bouncing his wand against his palm as he turned to the rest of them. "So. How do we do this?"

"Zach, get Harry and Tony in here." Whether he technically had any right to the command didn't matter. Someone had to do it, and the instincts Neville was running on now were no longer those of a follower. Not here. Not with the ghosts of his DA everywhere and his face burning, back throbbing thick reminders of the prices already paid. "We leave the DMLE on this side, go through as a team. Tell -"

"Sir?" There was a note of alarm in Sally-Anne's voice that stopped him.

"What is it?"

"My…my eyes aren't working." The alarm had gone over to tightly held almost-panic now, and she was jabbing at her eyes with her wand in a way that was wrong on such a gut level that he had to look away even before she popped one out, working it desperately with her fingers to no avail. The orb that usually shined with multi-colored clarity was as blank and dead as a child's marble, her vacant socket the open-mouthed scream she was refusing to voice.

"Your face is bleeding, Commander." Zach's warning was shaking, hardly more than a whisper, but he knew it was true even before he reached up to touch and found the confirmation wet and thick and staining his fingers crimson from the old wounds.

Strange how, with everything coming apart, it was so much easier to be strong. Had he heard his answer come from a stranger's mouth, he'd have thought this sort of thing happened every day. "Hogwarts is incredibly strong magic – magic that's not happy right now - and for us at least, it's strongest here and strongest about that night. We've got to be ready to –"

The window at the end of the corridor opened, Harry and Tony arriving in answer to his orders. Harry dismounted immediately, lightly, propping his broom against the wall, but as he started towards them, he was stopped by an abrupt cry of pain. Tony's own attempted dismount had dissolved into a crumpled heap on the floor, and he was clutching his legs just below the knees, his breath coming in tight, hissing streaks.

"Shit!" Harry was at Tony's side immediately, pulling the broom away and cutting the trousers open. The stumps were livid red and purple, pulsing and grotesque above the rims of the prosthetic sockets. Tony had braced himself now, hands pressed flat to the stones, but the agony was still clear in the tight cords of his neck and the iron set of his jaw, sweat beading thick on a forehead that had gone ashen white.

Harry loosened the straps, easing the pressure a little as he glanced down the corridor at the knot of people in front of the RoR's damning telltale door. "Neville, take Saz and Tony down to Hogsmeade. Make sure we're not going to be ambushed at the other side of the passage. Auror credentials will get you through the barrier. Zach and Ron weren't in it like you guys. I'll take them through the passage from this end. Justin will stay with the students. The Enforcers will hold the entrance."

There was no discussion, no argument, no need for words at all. They moved fast, with an efficiency that made it seem as if this had all been rehearsed for years. Zach, Harry, and Ron vanished into the RoR. The Enforcers took up positions at the door as if carved there from stone.

Sally-Anne took Neville's elbow with her left hand, both eyes uselessly back in her head and her collapsible cane retrieved from her pocket to act far cruder substitute in probing the returned darkness. She let go only briefly while he knelt for Tony, and though he'd been afraid of how much this was going to cost him, the other man's strength was incredible, and he took all the work of lifting his own weight, holding himself so well that Neville's back barely registered protest as he stood.

They made it down three floors before anyone spoke, Tony's bitter laugh warm against the side of his neck. "Well. Aren't we ridiculously fucking useless?"

"You're bloody amazing to be Aurors anyway," Neville said immediately, "and this isn't your fault. It hit me too. We just need to get out of here."

Another silence, the swift tapping pattern of Sally-Anne's cane and his own increasingly heavy breathing the only distractions from the weirdly echoing voice of the ghosts confirming their fruitless search, greeting each other, realizing what it meant to see someone they'd hoped would live the night. Distantly, Neville knew that despite Tony taking the worst of it, there was still a toll being exacted that he would pay heavily and soon, but it didn't matter, and he was welcome for the distraction when Sally-Anne's hesitant question tightened her hand on his arm. "Do you…do you really think it's Hermione, Commander?"

He nodded grimly, then realized she couldn't see him and felt like an ass for it. "Looking that way."

"But why? I never really knew her that well, but it just doesn't make sense."

"I'm sure it does to her," Tony offered awkwardly. "Look at Seamus. Everyone thought he'd just snapped, but it was all of a piece in his head."

"It wasn't just in his head."

Neville hadn't meant the correction to sound so harsh, but he could feel the sudden tightness in Tony's arms and knew it had been taken as a rebuke. "That too."

"Do you think we've got another motherfucker rising then, Commander?" There was no levity in Sally-Anne's voice now, and even with her expression so oddly blank, there were volumes spoken in that she had stopped using the cane completely, drawing in nearer to him with her arm against his as well as the hand that still lay in the crook of his elbow. "With the Ravens and the diaries, are they trying to tell us they're bigger than Dumbledore, maybe?"

"I profoundly hope not," Neville answered honestly. "I've hit my quota for a lifetime, I think."

Another long pause, and she made an odd little noise, a corner of her mouth twitching up in not really a smile. "I hope it's a woman this time."

Neville frowned in bafflement, and he could feel the brush of Tony's curls against the back of his neck as the other man turned to look as well. "Excuse me?"

"Well, y'know," she shrugged, but there was still no real humor to it. "It's about time, I reckon. With the Elizabeths and Queen Vic and Boudicca and the lot, there's no question we can rule, but I was kind of disappointed at the way Lestrange went at it. She was at least as whackjob as Tommy lad, proper waste her being his lapdog. I'd love to see just once a good bitch hell-bent on world domination. We could bloody do it."

Neville shook his head slowly, pausing a moment to be sure of his balance before taking on the next set of stairs. "Saz, the way your mind works worries me sometimes."

Now she did laugh, though he got the distinct feeling that she was trying too late to make something a joke that hadn't been. "That's totally my point!"

"All seriousness though, Commander…" Tony hesitated, choosing his words carefully, his voice measured despite the pain in a way that put Neville immediately on alert. "Hermione's not…she's not been the same since Druim Cett. We all know that. You and Finnigan may have prevented the big part of what happened, but what if it was something like what Riddle did to Harry? He still had them for a full twenty-four hours and there were a lot of prep rituals they still endured…."

He trailed off, but the implication was clear in the air, and he was glad that Sally-Anne was the one to actually say the terrible words. "You mean the Diabhal Dubh as a Horcrux in Hermione?"

Tony nodded, sighing as if the thoughts themselves were an unbearable weight. "Neville, you said the whole point was in her kind of giving birth to his soul again, and the Avatars are right up his ancient magical alley."

"Correction, Saz," Neville said flatly, "I outright love the way your mind works compared to his."

She was almost as closely attached to him now as Tony, her steps shorter now and slowing them, but he didn't begrudge it. He couldn't imagine taking this in the absolute dark, the shadows of a night battle deepened by the sounds of the ghosts and the new obscenities of what was now being suggested. "It makes sense with it being so completely out of character for her."

"Ginny didn't even remember what she did when Riddle was active in her." Tony offered it like a comfort. It wasn't.

The idea of Hermione as a crazed killer was bad enough, but this theory frightened Neville in a way that he had not realized he was still capable of, and his mind careened wildly for evidence to throw against it. "But there was no activity on her wand at the Weasleys!"

Tony's reply was too quick, too understanding. "The Diabhal Dubh did plenty wandless."

Sally-Anne made a sudden yelping little scream of a noise and Neville stopped at once, afraid she'd hurt herself. But no, she was grinning in pure relief, her eyes shining bright again and dazzling through the hundred colors of their various settings as she blinked furiously. "Sir, I can see again!"

"Thank Merlin." He touched his face. The blood was sticky, drying, but there was nothing new; the wounds had closed again. Was the epicenter of whatever it was the RoR? Had they just gotten far enough away? Or did this mean it was getting better? Going away? Or getting closer? It really didn't matter, and there was no time to wonder about it with fuck-all they could do anyway.

There were other, so much more important things to worry about. Like unthinkable theories that were way, way too plausible. Like the return of old enemies in old friends. "Saz, you run ahead. I'm going to get Tony a little further and check the damage before we trust everything to work right. The second you're out those gates, Apparate to the Loch and use your authorization to spring Finnigan."

She started to dash off, but Tony called after her, almost throwing them both off balance. "Wait!" She stopped, half-turned back on the staircase below them, and Tony squirmed, pulling something out of his pocket and tossing it to her. It was a medallion of some kind, about the size of a Galleon but matte brass and engraved with a series of intricate symbols. "Ministry first. Take this to the DoM. Get the knife out of lockup."

Her eyes widened as she shoved the medallion deep into her pocket. "You mean…."

"That knife, yes. If he's going up against the Dubh again, it'll give him an edge, no pun intended." Her mouth opened, closed, but there was nothing to say, and she just nodded, sprinting down the stairs and away as if afraid the darkness would catch her again. And perhaps it would.

Maybe it was going to get all of them. Maybe it already had.

Neville took the next few stairs carefully, the weight so much heavier now even though he knew nothing had changed. He stopped on the next landing, lowering slowly until Tony was able to grab the railing and pull himself off. For a while, no one said anything, both men checking themselves, stretching, making sure that things really were better and trying to separate the pain of old and new, serious and nothing.

Even when Neville did speak again, he couldn't look Tony in the eyes, pretending that it was because he was trying to use the back of his Auror's badge with some spit and a handkerchief to clean the blood from his face and neck. "How long have you been thinking this, Tony?"

"Honestly, about ten minutes, Sir," he confessed, removing the prosthesis entirely and doing something with the padding inside the sockets. "I should have thought of it earlier, but it was all the ghosts. I just had a passing thought that it was so horribly beautifully wrong and strange seeing them as people again when I've gotten so used to them just being names on the monument or on Finnigan's chest…and then I thought of his scar and it was one of those ideas that just smacks you like a hex." One of the pads was very bloody. Tony took it out, cleaned it with his wand, replaced it. He still did not make any attempt at eye contact. "It makes way too much sense, but in a way, it's a relief…I…I could forgive her for that. We all could. We've forgiven Harry and Ginny both, and Harry wrestling that thing to the ground definitely demanded a butcher's bill."

"You ought to tell him that," Neville suggested, wadding the stained cloth and vanishing it rather than trying to make it come clean. "He thinks we still blame him."

Tony shrugged, tightening something on the left ankle with a look of too-deep concentration. "Some do."

A scream split the air, freezing them both for a terrible moment before it was followed by laughter, sobs, more screaming of a completely different sort but still tied up in too many feelings to be called so simple as good or bad. The scream had been nameless, but the voices, the other cries he knew, and he felt as though someone had taken hold of his heart in an icy fist and twisted it up into his throat, blocking all air. Parvati had found her sister at last.

Her bracelet was still in his trunk at home.

Neville closed his eyes hard, opened them again, found the Commander's center. "If it's the Dubh, though, why are we seeing the Hogwarts losses and not Rose or Russ?"

"Terrible evil?" Tony suggested pensively. "A threat at Hogwarts and those who died to defend her rise to defend her again?"

Neville nodded, agreeing that it was plausible. Tony had finished adjusting his legs and was preparing to fasten them on again, but Neville hesitated, gesturing towards the still-swollen and discolored limbs. "Those look awful."

"I've walked on worse." He had already fitted them in, yanking down on the straps so tightly that Neville winced in unwilling sympathy before the trousers were pulled down and mended with a casual swish of his wand. "Let's go…just spot me."

There was no use in arguing further, and Neville offered his shoulder to brace Tony as he pulled himself upright. There was an involuntary moan, a shudder of pain, but then he stabilized, the tight breaths slowing into iron control, and he took a step, then another, letting go of all support to toss back a cheeky grin over his shoulder. "Library lilies indeed, eh?"

It was wildly inappropriate, but Neville laughed, searching for a response and finding none before Colin materialized, sobering them both. "News?"

"Harry says join him at the other end anyway, he's not cross that they made it first. But there's another body in the Hogs Head."

"Who?"

"Mundungus Fletcher." Colin said distractedly, his eyes narrowing in concern as he took in the strained pallor of Tony's face, the open robes and sweat-soaked shirt beneath, but Neville stopped him with a look before he could say anything, and the boy simply sighed, continuing with his message. "Seems like he got in the way of whoever was making their big exit. Someone took something out of his wallet, too. Scattered money everywhere and didn't even pause for it."

Tony smirked. "That's the first one I'm almost tempted to say had it coming."

They were almost out of the castle, the staircase giving way to the wide sweep of the entry hall, but Neville hesitated, the tall, gleaming suits of armor jogging something in his memory that had little to do with Colin's report. "Tony, wait just a moment. Let me try something…."

It didn't matter who was watching, what they would think, if maybe it really was crazy. Neville knelt there on the cool marble of the floor, letting himself go back in his mind, back to the night when the stone had been a lattice of cracks and burns, the air nearly unbreathable with dust. To when he had been pinned beneath the wreckage of the stairs he had just descended, to the horrible shrieks of the girl who had thrown herself into a demon's jaws to try and save him.

Back and then forward again on the thread of moments he should never have survived to a dark forest glade, chanting and hell and the faces of monsters, the shine of a mask, the shock of suicidal defiance that had saved them all long enough for the kiss of flame to fall into the blue sky of a world that did or did not exist. Back and forward to a cavernous throne room, a mist-filled forest, the first weight of mail and plate on his shoulders. Back and forward to a training circle with a patch of scorched grass.

The old prayer, the offer made again, backed by the chorus of martyrs. _You gave yourself to me. I give myself to you. I have since the very beginning. I've done it all for you. All of you. I loved you all. Heaven help me, I still do. If you need me again, I'm here. If he's back, I'll keep my oath. Is it my turn? Did I not do enough to stop him last time? Is this because I let Seamus take the blade?_

His hands were open, truly willing, but there was no answering touch of cool, heavy steel or gilt, only a certainty that answered one question but not, he discovered, in a way that was any easier. He wanted to press forward, to ask if it was true, if he was back, if Hermione was harboring an unholy parasite, but there was something stopping him like a hand over his heart's mouth, and he knew those answers were not to be given yet. He opened his eyes, standing again to find Tony looking at him with an expression that held more curiosity and less judgment or confusion than he had expected. "What was that?"

"Nothing." Neville sighed, shaking his hands to clear the last of the lingering tingle there. Strange how he was coming to accept this as so almost normal. Strange how he had come to accept any of his life as normal, really. "It was nothing. Which means this time, even if the Dubh is back, it's not my fight."

Tony nodded quietly, pushing open the doors that would take them out onto the grounds and across to the gates and away to where it had happened yet again. "Is that better or worse?"

"I'd like to say better…"

"But with our luck?"

"Probably worse."

They had just reached the edge of the lawn when Harry's familiar stag came sweeping up the road from the village below, tossing its antlers eagerly as it relayed the message. "Zach found some papers on Dung that makes us think he's been spending a lot of time out at Diggle's place. Meet us there!"

Neville glanced at his partner, frowning in concern as he noticed how pale he still was, how he was trying to act as though it were entirely coincidental that he was bracing himself on the wrought-iron bars of the gate. "No heroics, Tony. Are you up for it?"

Tony smiled tightly, though he did not let go. "I'm a Ravenclaw, I don't do heroics."

"You lot keep saying that." It was everything Neville could do not to outright roll his eyes, but it was still clear in his tone. "For people so into facts, it's such complete bullshit."

"Not hardly, Commander," Tony corrected him archly. "Heroics are the ridiculous stunts Gryffindors pull for no good reason. We always have a reason."

"And reason says?"

The light, bantering tone was abandoned, and Tony closed his eyes, taking a deep, slow breath before opening them again, his demeanor fully sobered and the cost unshielded but pragmatic. "I can do this. Honestly. Safely. I'll need two days off, my wife'll be furious, and it's a good thing none of us have a problem with blood, but I can do it…and it'd be heroics for you to go in alone."

Considering that he'd been offered and denied a disability exemption himself at each of his own Auror physicals, it would have been the height of hypocrisy to push the point further, and Neville nodded, clapping Tony firmly on the shoulder. "All right then. Down we go."

They Apparated in at the end of the walk leading up to Diggle's house; an odd sort of thing that like many wizarding homes, including the Weasley's, displayed the architectural style of Late-Medieval-Stone-Cottage-That-Got-Stuff-Added-Here-And-There. At least one portion that was almost completely buried under ivy and climbing roses had probably been honestly Tudor, and three others had tried to follow that lead to varying degrees of success. Patches of slate were tucked among the thatch of the roof, and the overall effect should have been eccentrically charming, but at the moment, it rankled nerves that were hungry for order.

A quick glance confirmed that Tony had made it all right, and they pushed open the nasturtium-covered gate, unsurprised to find the door opened before they were halfway up the flagstone path. Harry met them with his wand leveled directly at Neville, his eyes hidden behind the reflection of the afternoon sun off the lenses of his glasses but his body language unmistakable. "Umbridge's office. Inquisitorial squad. Who was holding you?"

The question stopped him in his tracks, and Neville thought back desperately through the dozen years' gap. He remembered the gaudy pink clearly, the grating mewing of the kittens on the stupid plates, the thick, smelly arm across his throat and jabbing wand at his temple (and the retrospective embarrassment of now knowing a dozen ways to get out of that hold), but putting a face to the damned thing was proving far harder. "Ah…Goyle?" he guessed. "Crabbe? Oh, bloody hell, Harry, I don't remember! Someone large who belonged to Draco!"

A quick snort of almost-laughter cracked the professional façade as the wand swung to Tony. "That'll do. I don't remember either. You –"

Tony smirked, raising one eyebrow knowingly. "Black lace, top left drawer, the low-cut bikini kind."

The wand was promptly re-holstered up Harry's sleeve, and they both pretended not to notice the color the highest ranking magical law enforcement officer in the UK had turned. "Right." Harry coughed, recovering his voice. "So…where's Saz?"

"Quick go to the Ministry to get her eyes checked out." Neville startled at the smoothness of Tony's lie, but Harry didn't seem to have noticed, and he decided not to point it out for the moment. He had his reasons, surely, and there was no question that Neville had learned to trust in both his brains and judgment. Still, he didn't like it, and he was all the more concerned when he caught the motion of the hand so casually in Tony's pocket, the stuttered flexing of tendons from squeezing the Galleon. He couldn't read the whole thing, but it was enough to know he'd messaged Sally-Anne, and it bothered him.

"Good idea." Harry agreed blithely, leading them into the house with a surprisingly cheery attitude, all things considered. "We might actually have gotten a leg up here, gentlemen. Diggle's old Order and still breathing, that puts him in an incredibly exclusive club these days, and we've got the Nevermore running faster than they can plan. The pattern's clear enough - he's got to go - and we're going to be waiting."

"So we're setting an ambush?" Tony's question was more confirmation.

Harry made a noise of agreement as he sealed the door behind them, adding one of the near-unbreakable Department-issue locks to the common deadbolt.

"But not walking into one. Diggle's already been removed from the castle to a holding cell by the Enforcers, and he's under tight guard."

Even as Harry explained the situation, he had lead them the few steps down the narrow hallway to the cluttered, low-beamed kitchen, and Neville stopped, tilting his head in confusion at the elderly man sitting at the rough table who certainly bore a remarkable resemblance to the supposedly absent homeowner. "Then –?"

Harry's grin was boyishly mischievous, the mark of a man who truly loved his job, but there was a nastier undertone that spoke of a trap well-laid and baited. "Smith under Polyjuice."

Tony drew out the chair on the other side of the table, taking the opportunity to sit down as he made an exaggerated appraisal of their fellow Auror. "Seventy-one looks good on you, Zach."

Harry shook his head, rapping his knuckles on the back of the chair. "Sorry, Tony. No time. Let's go, lads. Full search of the house; I want it cleared quick, then we disillusion and wait."

There was no need for further orders. They split up immediately, Neville taking the sitting room as the other three branched down the hall. It was enjoyable in its way, the rote procedure of it. Everything was calculated, everything trained and practiced and by the book, from the way you entered the room with the check for people or alarms to the grid pattern that swept the walls, the joists, the floorboards, the ceiling, the windows. The scan of each piece of furniture, checking every object for charms and booby-traps. It was something you could get right, something straightforward, and he'd finished almost half the room without finding anything more sinister than a self-cleaning ashtray before the workmanlike quiet was cut by an old man's voice that he had to remind himself was Zach. "Back hallway! I got something!"

By the time he got there, making sure to seal the room behind him, Zach had already moved a large sideboard several feet to the right of the former resting place clearly marked by the fade pattern of the wallpaper, revealing a hidden panel in the wall that was nearly six feet tall and just over two feet wide. Harry tapped it carefully with his wand, eyebrows raising at the distinctively hollow sound. "Hello, hello…this isn't on the floor plan. Daedalus, you naughty lad, why didn't you tell me?"

Harry raised his hand, motioning them to take backing positions on either side of the no longer secret door and prepare for entry. A quick count of three, an exchange of glances, and the blast from his wand demolished the door so completely that there were barely splinters left floating in the air as they burst through. "AUROR DEPARTMENT, ON THE FLOOR, HANDS ON YOUR HEAD!"

It was a bedroom. Neville wasn't sure what he'd expected, but this hadn't been it. There was a rank, musty odor to the stuffy air, the light from the filthy oil lamp on the ceiling and the one narrow, equally crusted window so dim that he had to take a moment for his eyes to adjust before he could make out much of anything at all. It was maybe ten by fifteen feet, but it seemed far smaller, crammed floor to ceiling with boxes and crates and trunks that bulged at the seams and were labeled crudely in a dozen languages modern and ancient. In the middle of it all was a narrow iron bed and a small table balanced on two broken legs and a stack of books, an empty plate and a half-full mug of tea crowding for space.

The only occupant of the room barely contoured the thin, rough blanket, and at first, Neville was completely convinced that they had found another corpse. Then the skeletal figure moved, twisting to prop shakily up on one withered arm and peer quizzically at them, as though four strangers exploding his door was nothing of more than passing interest. His hair and beard were like spider silk, his skin like crepe folded into infinite fractals of age, but there was a familiar glitter to the eyes sunken deep within the hollow face as it broke into a smile over a half-dozen tombstones of rotted teeth. "Jim? Frank? Oh, thank Merlin you boys got here in time. I've been so worried…"

It took a moment for the names to sink in, but they seemed to hit Harry at the same moment, and he turned to meet Neville's look, his own eyes wide. "Oooh dear…."

Tony was the first to recover, stepping past them to check the teetering stacks for possible hiding places. "Smith, call a medic. Now."

Zach retreated back to the hallway to cast his Patronus, and Harry shook himself hard, motioning to Neville to follow as he took a slow, cautious step towards the bed. "Cover me. No chances." The figure in the bed continued to stare in a blank sort of friendliness at them, and they were barely three feet away when he heard Harry give a hiss of shocked recognition. "_Ab_? Aberforth, is that you?"

"Of course, Jim, who else?" The old man cackled weakly, flopping back down onto the patched and ragged pile of pillows with a sigh that stank of sour miasma. "But got to be careful these days. So careful."

"That's right, gotta be careful." Harry had dropped the harsh defensive completely, his voice soft as he crouched at the bedside, lowering himself to eye level, but Neville did not miss that his wand remained out, nor the hand signal directing him to hold cover. "Do you know what year it is?"

Fragile eyelids fluttered, yellow-nailed fingers playing vaguely at the sheets. "Seventy eighty ninety one two three, who knows, been in here so long, same four walls, but the birds come and the birds go…." His words rasped across the surface of guttering breaths, and Neville struggled to find something in the turn of jawbone or arch of profile to connect to the sharp, cynical barkeep he remembered as the benefactor and quartermaster of the RoR.

The reference to birds did not escape Tony, who had pulled up a trunk to the other side of the bed, his eyes narrowed keenly. "Ravens?"

Any answer was interrupted by a knock on the doorframe, and Neville turned to see that Zach had returned with a woman in red robes, a large satchel over one shoulder. "Auror Potter?"

"We just found this gentleman in here, Healer." Harry stood, motioning her in. "And he doesn't seem to be in very good shape. I was hoping you could help him."

She nodded, picking her way through the maze of boxes to the bed. Now that she was no longer just an outline in the light, Neville could see that she was a few years older than he himself, tall and strikingly beautiful, with dark hair and eyes and sculpted, even features that could have been severe but instead radiated warmth and kindness as she bent over the bed, tapping her wand against the inside of her forearm to dispel any residual static. "Good afternoon, Sir, I'm Healer Corner, and I'm here to help you, all right?"

The rheumy eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Don't need help from no drag queen. Still owe me money."

She laughed, already beginning her scans. "Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm all witch. I have quite a few relatives in the medical field, though, so you're probably thinking of one of my cousins or uncles."

He made a harsh, grunting noise, obviously not convinced, and Neville cleared his throat, interrupting quietly. "I think he remembers Michael, Healer. Elaine and Lionel's son. He knew him years ago…he was supposed to be our medic, and Ab got him the supplies he was going to need to build a battlefield kit. They spent a lot of time on it. You…" He hesitated, swallowing hard past the sudden thickness in his throat at the realization that he'd seen neither Mike nor Terry at the castle. "Well, there's a resemblance."

She froze, her face falling noticeably pale even in the faint, yellow light of the lamp, her full lips pressing together so hard they nearly vanished. "Oh. Right. I have been told that, yes. We were cousins…our fathers…well –" She shook her head harshly, cuffing at eyes that he hadn't noticed brimming as she turned back to her patient. "Anyway. Let's get you checked out so we can see about moving you to hospital."

"WON'T GO!" The shout carried a startling power, but it threw him into a ragged fit of coughing that seemed about to tear him apart, Healer Corner struggling to soothe him as a thick, yellowed foam brimmed to his lips. "Can't…" he gagged. "Can't go!"

Harry frowned, circling around to see his face more clearly. "Are you a prisoner, Ab? Is someone keeping you in here?"

His eyes had lost their focus, and if he even saw them any more, it was hard to tell. "Same four walls better late than never…."

Aberforth's hands moved fitfully on the blankets as the Healer took his vital signs with quick, practiced hands, an automatic quill already hovering to mark them down. She summoned a stethoscope from her bag, listening to his chest for a moment, but it was still heaving in agitation, and she cast a frustrated look over her shoulder at the Aurors. "I'm sorry, but could you officers step back for a moment? I need –"

"Right. Of course." Neville moved back almost to the hallway, the other three following to give her the space she needed to work. It was patently obvious that Aberforth was not a threat, but that didn't make this any less of a mess.

They watched the Healer work over the frail body, Zach chewing his lip thoughtfully. "Not what I was expecting, I'll give you that. Should I call in Ron from the yard?"

Tony shook his head, even though the question hadn't been directed to him. "We're still expecting the Nevermore, I think. But this…Harry, he thinks you're your dad."

"No kidding," Harry's voice was flat, his face unreadable as he motioned toward Neville. "Both of us. Dementia, obviously, but he's what…?"

"Older than crap?" Zach offered.

Tony's correction was automatic. "A hundred and twenty-four."

Zach rolled his eyes. "Like I said, older than crap. I thought he died in '03? We went to his funeral."

Harry hadn't taken his eyes off the bed, but there was something in his gaze that gave Neville the feeling that he could hear gears spinning in the messy black head. "Obviously not." He paused, tapping his wand against his chin slowly. "Or it's our Nevermore trying to throw us. Polyjuice, grabbed something from the Hogs Head that used to be Ab's before he sold it to Dung? Using the dementia act so that we can't ask him anything too exact to confirm his identity?"

Neville considered it, turning the theory over in his mind carefully. "How would the Nevermore know about the room here? Do you think Diggle's collaborating?"

"Don't have all the answers yet." Harry admitted. "I think –"

"Auror Potter, Sir?" Corner stood up from the bedside, professional enough to pretend she hadn't been able to hear them as she slipped into their tight cabal at the doorway. "If I may?"

"How bad is he?" Harry asked bluntly.

"I could give you the long, technical list, but the crux of the spell is that he's dying of the natural complications of extreme old age." Her answer held the equal candor of someone who was not working with law enforcement for the first time. "He might have a few days, maybe a few minutes. It's impossible to know."

Tony crossed his arms, leaning back against a tall wooden crate labeled in Cyrillic script. "Is there anything you could do to improve his lucidity?"

"There are things I could give him that would increase blood flow to the brain," she allowed grudgingly, "but I'd give it about a fifty-fifty shot between getting you about five minutes of clarity or blowing the whole thing like an old tire."

"I'm going to have to ask you to please attempt it." Harry already had his notepad out, putting the orders in writing even as he gave them. "The only link we've found in the Nevermore murders is that they've all had a connection to Albus Dumbledore, and that's his shouldn't-be-alive brother right there, so I have some incredibly important questions for him."

Neville wasn't so sure, even though he knew the decision wasn't his to make. "You said he's dying anyway, Healer…would it cause him more pain?"

She took the paper Harry gave her, studied it, then crumpled it deliberately and threw it off into the shadows without a second glance. "Sorry, Potter. A half dose. That's the most I feel professionally comfortable with, and I can't medically vouch for his mental state. You won't be able to use his testimony in court, which means the evidentiary override doesn't apply here."

He could see Harry gearing up to argue, but he could see just as clearly that Healer Corner wasn't budging any time soon, and they simply didn't have time. Especially if the stubbornness ran anywhere near as strongly as the cheekbones. Neville touched Harry's arm, trying to walk the careful line of friendship so newly re-drawn between them. "It's better than nothing."

For an instant, he thought Harry was going to ignore him, then the tension in the shoulders faded and he sighed, gesturing his agreement to the Healer's conditions. She gave that smug, 'see-that-didn't-hurt-so-bad' smile that Neville firmly believed was a requirement to pass medical school, and they waited as she returned to the bedside, opening her bag and injecting him with something from the portable potions kit before she signaled that they were ready.

Aberforth didn't look any better – still bearing a remarkable resemblance to a mummy, in fact - but Harry's face was hopeful as he knelt to take the old man's hand, squeezing it ever so slightly. "Ab? Ab, mate, do you know who I am?"

The blue eyes slit open, the creases of the liver-spotted brow arranging themselves into deeper furrows. "Jim…no…no…something's…come here. Come." Harry obeyed, and Aberforth reached up with his other hand, crooking the edge of the glasses and pulling them almost off the end of Harry's nose as he muttered seemingly to himself. "Not Jim. Jim's dead. Not Jim's glasses. And Jim…has brown eyes. You're…oh…." His expression of concentration broke into one of painful pity. "Ohh…."

"You remember now?" Neville wondered if Harry realized he was whispering.

"Harry. Harry Potter." Aberforth clucked his tongue, stroking Harry's cheek with a soft, paternal moan. "Poor little Harry. All grown up now, though. Good, good. Albus wanted to do things…I never agreed…not fair to do to a poor little boy. Tried to warn your parents. And Longbottom!"

Neville jumped, surprised that he'd even been noticed. "Yes, sir?"

"No, no sir," Aberforth made a distasteful face. His hand was still resting on Harry's cheek as if he had forgotten it was there, his attention entirely on Neville now. "Your little one, what did you name him?"

The question surprised him; when Aberforth had supposedly died, he and Hannah hadn't even been married yet. "I…I have three, actually; Trevor, Margaret, and Ernest."

"No, no, no…" The grey head shook in consternation and he smacked his mouth, struggling to find the thoughts. "I…the other one…Nigel? No, Neville. Yes, that's it." The triumph vanished almost as quickly as it happened. "I wanted to warn you, you and Jim. I found a book, it's all the things he's planning to do…I've been trying to warn you boys. I always liked you. Like the babies. Such cute babies." He seemed to remember his hand on Harry's face at last, pushing the glasses back into place. "Yours is squinty though, Jim. Holds his toys too close. Gonna need specs like you, I think."

Zach stifled a giggle, and Harry shot a frustrated, sidelong glance at Corner. "This is not what I'd call lucid, Healer."

"It's the best I can give you without essentially murdering him." She insisted. "You'll have to get what you can."

Harry sighed, turning back to the bed. "How have you been trying to warn us?"

Aberforth's eyes had drifted closed again, his answer a scarcely audible mumble. "Send you pieces of the book. Want to send more but can't make it…not strong enough for a better one. Can't carry more than a little piece."

Tony all but Apparated across the room, overbalancing and barely catching himself on the bed in his haste. "You're sending the ravens?! The avatars?!"

The Auror's fervor had absolutely no effect on Aberforth's dreamy whispers. "Birds come…birds go…have to keep it a secret. Not supposed to know what Al is up to with Nicky." He sighed, the sound as dry as the wind through a branch of dead leaves. "Not supposed to know Nicky's birds or steal his potions. Sneaky, always sneaky. Why did Al always have to be so sneaky? But I got him good, didn't I! I can be sneaky too…"

"Everyone thought you were dead." Neville noted. "That's very sneaky."

"Mmmm." There was a distinct note of self-satisfaction to the noise that was a bit uncomfortable to hear. "Ways of doing that. Mama's got ways. Old tricks from the islands. Enemies…."

"Your enemies, Ab?" Harry pressed hopefully. "What were your enemies trying to do?"

"Old man, sneaky. Secrets and stuff, get you anything. Everyone thought I had everything. Easy to kill an old man unless he does it first, unless he hides." Another black, rotted cackle of a laugh. "Took all the good stuff with me! Sneaky!"

"How did you get the book, Ab?" Tony's voice had started to rise sharply, but he caught himself, forced it back under control, if only just. "How did you get Al's book? I was sneaky too. My friends and I hid it. Where did you find it?"

"Birds come, birds go…." He faded away again, a thin, silvery strand of drool slipping from the corner of his mouth to catch in the wispy tangle of his beard as his head sank to the side on the pillow.

It was clearly the last straw.

As an Unspeakable, Tony carried a small kit at his belt that none of the rest of them did, and he heard the snap on it pop scarcely a second before his hand flashed up and down again, the needle of Veritaserum sparkling an instant under the light before its contents were plunged into the reed-thin arm. Corner made a sharp, strangled noise, lunging forward across the bed to grab his wrist and wrench away the now-empty vial. "You can't –!"

"Too late." Tony's eyes were burning in a way Neville had never seen before, his stare merciless as he leaned in low, his question a dangerous growl. "Aberforth Dumbledore, how the fuck did you get ahold of your brother's diary?"

For a moment, Neville thought he had actually died, then the blue eyes snapped open again, clearer and brighter than he'd seen them since they arrived. There was something like tone to his face again as well, and though he still looked like the decayed remains of his own corpse, there was, for the first time, something of the man he'd met as a teenager to be seen again. "I…the battle." Aberforth licked his lips, seemingly startled at the clarity of his own mind's response to the question. "The night the castle came down. I was…"

Harry leaned forward, the fury that had seemed to be building only seconds ago at Tony's renegade maneuver now seemingly forgotten. "Yes?"

"The morning after, I was helping with the bodies." He was still weak, terribly so, but every word was clear and deliberate. "At the morgue. Going through the pockets of the mangled ones, helping with identification."

"That's all?"

The look he gave Tony would have frozen lava. "I wouldn't rob dead children."

Tony did not back down. "But you took other things that night."

"There were a lot of valuables in the castle, yes, but I only wanted his diary. I wanted to know the truth. He'd lied to me his whole damned life," the bitterness of over a century's rivalry was still sharp on his tongue. "I deserved the truth."

"But the library was destroyed, wasn't it?"

"Yes, yes it was." Aberforth frowned, struggling delicately over the effort to recall like picking a fragment of glass from clay without cutting your fingers. "I tried to move some…and then this chamber just opened up in the stones, and there was a bag in it. I looked inside, and there were his diaries. A lot of other books, too. I took the bag." He shrugged faintly, dismissively. "Never could find a safe buyer for the other books."

"The bodies you were handling…do you remember at all who they were?" There was something mesmerizing, strangely intimate about the intensity of Tony's need, and even though a voice in the back of his head told him he should intervene, he was no more capable of doing so nor looking away than the rest of them.

"No, I was given the mangled ones."

"Like a boy who'd been torn apart? Or one with his head half ripped off? Dark hair, model-pretty?"

Aberforth's eyes flicked briefly to the Healer, then back to Tony as he nodded. "Mikey Corner, yes. I remember him." A pause to consider, the grey tongue dabbing over his lips again uselessly. "Torn apart…that could be any of them. I remember one was ripped all the way in two. Indian boy, I think, or maybe Arab. Something exotic, anyway. Brown skin. Chinky eyes."

Tony's hand was shaking as he ran it through his hair, and it was impossible to tell if he was talking to himself or to Aberforth at first. "Oy…blood willingly shed. At least two of them. And maybe even mine…I remember you helped tighten my tourniquets while we were waiting for the cease-fire to be over…oh, it would have been all over your hands."

Harry was leaning in as well now, his own eyes matching Tony's in fervor. "Who have you been working with? Why the murders, Ab? Is this some sick way of getting even with your brother?"

"I don't know anything about any murders!" The surprise seemed genuine, but neither officer backed down.

"You've been sending the Ravens with the scraps of diary, and within the hour for all of them, people have been killed!" Harry snapped. "That's not a coincidence!"

"I…I don't know why I sent them." There was a broken, plaintive air to the confession. "I've been so confused lately…it must have seemed the thing to do. I know I wanted to show them to you for a long time, but then you boys became Aurors and Al had made you such good little obedient House-Elves…I didn't want to spend my last years in jail."

"Where are the books now?"

"They're in there." He motioned vaguely towards one corner of the vast heap. "With all the things that people would have killed me for or that I never quite knew what to do with. Fat load of dragon dung they do me now."

Harry had his notepad out, the quill suspended breathlessly. "Has Daedalus been working with you, then?"

"Him?" Aberforth made a scoffing noise, grimacing. "He just takes care of me and keeps his mouth shut. I pay him. Pay him in gold. Better than the little nothing pension from the Ministry. But he's not murdering anyone, Merlin's earhair no."

He seemed to be drifting off again, rubbing at his shoulder, and Harry and Tony exchanged an urgent look, Tony moving in again urgently. "Would he know when you're sending the Ravens? Would anyone? Be able to time it, then? Does anyone else know you're still alive? Aberforth?"

"Doge…" Maybe the Veritaserum was wearing off already. He was definitely fading, becoming more and more preoccupied with his shoulder, his eyes getting vague again, his speech slurring.

"What about Doge?" Harry sounded nearly panicked.

"Visits…only one…no one sees the birds…have to be sneaky…only Diggle and Doge…and…her…" The last word cut off in a horrible, choking gurgle, and his eyes rolled back in his head, his spine arching in a sudden convulsion that had Corner on him immediately, wand flashing.

"Goddamn it, he's coding…move!" She elbowed Harry unceremoniously in the ribs, shoving him back as she dug in her bag with one hand, the other working her wand quickly over his chest. "If we lose him, Auror," she spared a brief, wicked glare at Tony. "I'm filing charges! What the _hell_ were you thinking?"

Tony was unrepentant as he got to his feet, bracing himself on the handle of a steamer trunk sitting atop a crate that could have held a moderate-sized lion. "I'm thinking we got more information in the last five minutes than we have in this entire case!"

Harry, though equally capable of pragmatism, was not nearly as cold, and Neville saw the flash of sorrow and guilt pass over his face before he pulled the mask back into place, turning his back on Corner's struggle over her patient. "Zach, Neville, start where he pointed. Let's see what the old boy's been stashing away."

"Well, I found the one of the diaries." Tony motioned with his wand, summoning a small, battered blue book from beneath the shadows of the bed. He flicked through it quickly, nodding in satisfaction. "This is definitely a hit. We shouldn't have a problem matching the pages to the parts he's torn out."

"I've found the rest of the books…" Zach was standing over an open crate almost exactly where Aberforth had indicated, an awestruck look on the face that wasn't his. "And it looks like about two thirds of the stolen goods and smuggling cases in our cold files, guys. _Fuck_."

"Him and Dung and Rosier out in a week." Harry gave a low, impressed whistle. "Do you know what this is going to _do_ to the black market?"

"I don't care about the black market." Corner interrupted, shoving a piece of parchment under Harry's nose. "Sign this. I'm taking him to hospital, and you're releasing him, because I think I just might be able to save him from your man's –"

"Just do it." Harry signed, pushing the parchment back at her. "And I'm sorry. Please, do your best."

"I'm a Healer, Mr. Potter," she tossed her head, folding the authorization crisply and tucking it into her pocket. "I'd never do less."

Neville barely heard them. He had spotted something tucked into the corner, something that seemed distinctly familiar. It was a sword. He picked it up, stepping back from the others to test it expertly, feeling the flawless balance to the steel that spoke of truly brilliant craftsmanship. It was a beautiful weapon, a bit dirty, though not damaged or rusted. The amount of decoration and the inlaid jewels made it obviously ceremonial but still perfectly good for war, much like Ascalon had been, and the heraldry…there was something wrong there…

Tony was staying carefully out of reach, but the hunger of curiosity was still evident. "What's that?"

He turned the sword to the light, examining it carefully. It made sense now why he'd been confused by the heraldry. Someone had tampered with it, and not recently. The pommel had been replaced with the figure of a bird, though the soft gold had taken enough wear that he couldn't tell if it was an eagle, hawk, or other raptor. The quillion block had originally been inset with an enameled shield in some kind of blue stone – lapis? – inlaid with three pieces of gold, but it had been enameled over in purple and more gilt, most of which had rubbed off, but still...oh.

Neville gasped, setting the sword down carefully on the nearest trunk as he reflexively crossed himself, the gesture one of pure training. "I'm…um…I'm pretty sure we just recovered Clarent."

"I repeat," Tony said tersely, "what's that?"

"Mordred's sword. Well, Arthur's originally. He stole it. It's been missing for a thousand years."

Harry blinked hard, staring at Neville as if he'd just announced the discovery of a live dinosaur. "How can you be so sure?"

"If any living person would know," Zach pointed out matter-of-factly, "he would. I mean, unless you've done the knight of the cornerless dinette set bit. I know I haven't."

Tony nodded slowly, unable to take his eyes off the gleaming weapon. "Fair enough."

"Whoa!" Zach yanked back from a newly opened trunk. "Take a go at this!"

Neville was the first to reach him, grateful for the distraction from the sword. There was a collection of seemingly random old junk jumbled together at the bottom of the moldy trunk, but one coarse, chipped pottery bowl was filled to the brim with what looked and smelled like Megan's signature shepherd's pie. He looked up, smiling teasingly at Zach. "Hungry, were you?"

"Don't touch anything else." Tony looked and sounded like he'd been punched in the face in an impossibly good way. "I'm pulling rank as an Unspeakable. No one lays a hand on anything until the DoM gets here." He pointed at the steaming dish, excitement building. "That's the _Crock of Rhyngenydd, _which means I'm pretty sure that's the Halter of Clydno Eidden and someone's been compiling at least a good chunk of the Thirteen – DOWN!"

Tony lunged at the same time he shouted the warning, and it was still barely enough. The brilliant green bolt shattered the window, striking the side of the crate exactly where Zach's head had been and blowing it to a smoking ruin. Neville was already on his feet, his wand in his hand without having even been aware of drawing it, his own red streak answering the green almost before it had faded. It struck the caster full in the chest, knocking them back and off their feet even as Ron came running around the corner of the house.

They both recognized the crumpled figure at the same time, their eyes locking in impossible, sickened understanding. And then Harry was at the window, and Neville had rarely seen a man's face lose color so quickly. "No!"

He spun away, nearly knocking Neville over despite the difference in their size as he barreled towards the exit. Neville was almost immediately behind, Tony and Zach only a few steps after that, though Zach was clutching a cloth to his badly-bleeding jaw from where Tony's life-saving tackle had slammed his face into the rim of the trunk. There was not a second thought for the priceless treasures they were abandoning, all of them hoping against possibility that they were, in some way, somehow wrong.

The back yard was tiny and ill-kept, a few stalwart flowering quince rearing above the weeds in the earstwhile flowerbeds, the patch of lawn rimmed on one side by the edge of a pathetically algae-choked excuse for a fish pond, on the other by a quickset hazel hedge that was in dire need of trimming. An unremarkable space that could have been nice with a few hours work and currently monstrous because of a single body lying splayed and senseless with her head in the mud and her hair floating among the duckweed.

Hermione. She was still dressed for court, from her carefully tasteful and conservative pearls to her carefully tasteful and conservative heels, still wearing her Solicitor's robes over the neatly cut grey suit, not so much as a ladder in her stockings or a chip on her nails. So flawlessly together, even now, with the scorch of his Stunner in the direct center of her chest and a water beetle ambling across the sodden Hogs Head beer mat in her open left hand.

"It can't be!" Harry dropped without a second thought, pulling her head into his lap and stroking the wet, mucky strands back from her face as if he could wipe away her identity. "It's Polyjuice, it's…it's not her!"

Ron was still standing where he had first rounded the edge of the building, his wand loose in his fingers. His expression held a numbness beyond grief, an acceptance of the inevitable like losing a fight with a terminal illness. He raised his free hand vaguely towards his friend, then let it fall, shaking his head. "Harry, mate…."

"It can't be!" It was a challenge, an ultimatum, a cornered animal's roar, and Harry glared from one man to the next, daring the contradiction. "It's some kind of misunderstanding!" His fury landed on Ron, fishtailing into despairing confusion. "How the fuck can you just– she's your _wife!_"

"I know," Ron's face crumpled, and Zach only just caught him with an arm around the shoulders in time for his knees to fail. The first had been a confession. The second was pure helplessness. "I _know_…"

"_Accio." _Tony summoned the wand from her clenched right hand, and he turned it now to the blank stone wall of the house before Harry could stop him.

"Don't -!"

"_Priori Incantatum!" _Green. Ugly, livid, fatal, unforgivable green.

Slowly, Tony lowered the wand, taking a deep breath as he sealed it into an evidence pouch, marking it with the time, date, and exact location as he used the excuse to speak without having to make eye contact with either Harry or Ron. "I…I need to ask permission for something. I have a theory."

Harry's eyes narrowed to bare slits of suspicion. "What kind of theory?"

"Saz wasn't getting her eyes checked. I sent her to get Finnigan, because I thought that if it was Hermione, if she did show up here…I thought…I thought…." He was struggling, the weight of Harry's anger pushing hard against the social anxiety that camaraderie usually conquered so easily, and Neville took over, crouching beside Harry in the shallow water, though careful not to seem in any way like he was going to touch Hermione.

"Tony thought that maybe when the Diabhal Dubh had her…well, we all he wanted to use her for the rebirth of his soul. He thought she might be carrying some of that, like you were with Riddle. Maybe it's like a Horcrux. Maybe it's not her fault."

The surge of hope was frightening to see. "How would we know?"

"Let Saz bring Seamus to check. If I know Tony, they're close by already."

"We are, and aye, I'd know. Same's you knew Riddle." There was a darkness to his best friend's voice that he had prayed never to hear again, and Neville suppressed a shiver as he turned.

Seamus shouldn't have looked any different than usual, clad casually in his usual work attire from the Loch of blue jeans, boots, and a flannel shirt over a worn out t-shirt, but there was a gleam of ivory at his belt that transformed him in a way that was impossible to miss. It was in his carriage and his eyes, in the careful severing and setting aside of his soul that promised complete inhumanity if necessary. He moved like a predator, barely seeming to bend the grass under his feet as he crossed to the edge of the mud. "Better's to know, don't you reckon, Potter?"

Harry nodded blankly. "Just…don't hurt her."

"If it's _him_," Seamus pulled the knife from his waist, spinning it easily in his hand. "I'm gonna fuckin' end this."

"No." Neville made it an order, backed with all the authority of things between them no one else could share. "Do whatever you need to in order to find out, but if there's a Horcrux, you can't kill her. We have to try and exorcise it."

"T'hell with that!"

"We got it out of Harry and Ginny," Neville refused to back down, not in the least intimidated, though a part of his mind had visualized the exact location of the sword and was prepared to summon it if he had to defend Hermione…or if Harry did something stupid. "We owe it to her!"

"If that's him and he so much as thinks about openin' any kind o' –"

"We cross that when we get there," Neville conceded. "All we're asking you to do now is just find out."

Seamus nodded, and it seemed as if time itself hung suspended, unable to move a breath of wind or dare the leaves to rustle while he stripped off his outer shirt and tossed it aside. No one was quite sure what he was going to do, but when he was bare to the waist he took her wand hand in his and lifted it, breaking away her bracelet with a snap of his thumb and a scatter of beads so that he could press the lines of the scars there against the jagged slash of the one on his own chest. He closed his eyes, taking a long, slow breath before opening them again with a smile that couldn't have been more welcome in the simple fact that it was human again. "Jesus wept, she's clean." His voice was trembling. "At least o'that. He's still gone."

Harry's jaw set again, and he looked as though the news was a personal betrayal that might never be forgiven. "Then it's not her."

"Oh, that it is," Seamus corrected him evenly. "We both hold that bastard's scars, and that much I could feel just fine."

Ron had pulled away from Zach to join them, and Neville knew that no other man could have lifted her from Harry's lap without protest. Harry stroked her shoulder as Ron took her, cradling her against his chest like a sleeping child. "Maybe she can explain?"

Ron kissed the top of her forehead, carefully positioning her hands behind her back. "Cuff her, Harry."

Harry looked stricken. "You don't –"

"Mate, speaking as your Deputy here, if you don't get your head on straight, I'm going to have to relieve you." Zach's tone was sympathetic, but firm, the wand unsheathed but low by his side a quiet emphasis on his sincerity. "We've got our top suspect in situ. Now, I get it; she's your best friend, fucking near your sister, and this is breaking your bloody heart." He reached inside his robes, unhooking his cuffs and holding them out in offer. "Ranking officer be damned, let me do this one, okay?"

"No." Harry bit his lip, squaring his shoulders as he collected himself with one of the most painfully deliberate efforts at self-control Neville had ever seen. "I at least owe her the guts to do it myself. Just…give me a moment." He wiped his forehead, pushing back the hair that had stuck to the sweat gleaming there, then looked to his friend beseechingly. "Ron?"

"Yeah?"

"Can you forgive me for this? Please? I can't lose you too."

Ron nodded, the motion barely perceptible but more than either man needed. "Of course, Harry. Nothing to forgive. It's ok."

"No, it's not." Harry shook his head, and there was a last glimpse of almost unbearable betrayal before the mask of responsibility slammed down. "It's not ok at all."

The cuffs were clicked into place, his wand slid into the crook of her neck against Ron's chest. The light flared, her eyes blinking open, and Harry's recitation was perfectly, professionally exact and steady as the tears traced shining broken promises down his face. "Hermione Jean Granger-Weasley, it is my duty that you be made aware of your standing under the Provision of Magical Rights and Liberties…."

TO BE CONTINUED


End file.
